If Pluto was geologically active, would it feel more like a planet than a cold dead rock in space? Maybe. Scientists have a way of diminishing Pluto. I remember taking young ladies out to watch submarine races and star gaze, looking for the eclipse of Pluto. Yes, I’m hopelessly old fashioned. Now-a-days the typical date is the McDonalds drive-through followed by a cheap motel, or so social media would have us believe.
There may be hope out there for you Plutonians.
The latest data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveal diverse features on Pluto’s surface and an atmosphere dominated by nitrogen gas. However, Pluto’s small mass allows hundreds of tons of atmospheric nitrogen to escape into space each hour.
Kelsi N. Singer, S. Alan Stern. ON THE PROVENANCE OF PLUTO’S NITROGEN (N2). The Astrophysical Journal, 2015; 808 (2): L50 DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/808/2/L50
Where does all this nitrogen come from?
Dr. Kelsi Singer, a postdoctoral researcher at Southwest Research Institute, and her mentor Dr. Alan Stern, SwRI associate vice president and the science lead for the New Horizons mission, outlined likely sources in a paper titled, “On the Provenance of Pluto’s Nitrogen.” The Astrophysical Journal Letters accepted the paper for publication on July 15, just a day after the spacecraft’s closest encounter with the icy dwarf planet (ApJ, 808, L50).
“More nitrogen has to come from somewhere to resupply both the nitrogen ice that is moving around Pluto’s surface in seasonal cycles, and the nitrogen that is escaping off the top of the atmosphere as the result of heating by ultraviolet light from the Sun,” said Singer.
Singer and Stern wondered if comets could deliver enough nitrogen to Pluto’s surface to resupply what is escaping its atmosphere. They also looked at whether craters made by the comets hitting the surface could excavate enough nitrogen — but that would require a very deep layer of nitrogen ice at the surface, which is not proven. The team also studied whether craters could expose more surface area, by punching through surface deposits that would likely be built up over time.
“We found that all of these effects, which are the major ones from cratering, do not seem to supply enough nitrogen to supply the escaping atmosphere over time,” continued Singer. “While it’s possible that the escape rate was not as high in the past as it is now, we think geologic activity is helping out by bringing nitrogen up from Pluto’s interior.”
And while the data was not in before this paper was written, the newest images of Pluto show land forms that suggest heat is rising beneath the surface, with troughs of dark matter either collecting, or bubbling up, between flat segments of crust, which could be related.
It is most likely that it’s most likely that Pluto is actively resupplying nitrogen from its interior to its surface, possibly meaning the presence of ongoing geysers or cryovolcanism. As new data arrives from New Horizons you’ll read about it here on this blog. New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
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And in unrelated news, the US Coast Guard has resorted to “old science” to provide firepower for its cutters. The USCG center for innovation is coming up with all sorts of interesting ways to save money in this budget strapped environment.
If you see a puddle pirate, hand him a hammer and thank him for his service…
Coast Guard. Sometimes a hard, dangerous job makes people a tat woo-woo.
They have navy envy.
They used to carry M1 Carbines and have M16 envy!
It's the very nature of knee-deep sailors.
That's weird, Pluto has a gas issue. Unlike, say, anywhere within the Beltway.
Mine's a Saracen, please.
That's going to hurt.
It's interesting what's just orbiting around. The late great Dr. Carl Sagan posited before he died that the test of corporeal life on a distant world would be the presence of a large quantity of methane. Saturn's moon, Titan, has a LOT of Methane but it's so cold that the oceans are made of hydrocarbons…no corporeal life making methane. I have no idea what process would be going on in cold and distant Pluto to create Nitrogen in vast quantities. It goes to show that not all of the questions are answered (yet).
Coasties turned into toasties.
A McDonalds drive through is the new date?Good God.
Pluto clearly needs a Maccy Dee's franchise. Stay old fashioned, Larry.
I'm trying to keep things real, Jules
I like how all our explorations lead to questioning what we began with.
What if, the escape of nitrogen is due to something completely different, say some nitrogen absorbing presence close to Pluto?
My friends were trying to explain to me, how time slows down close to the black hole. they ended up concluding that time is the one constant we have, and it can't slow down or fasten up.
I like the old fashioned ways, McDonalds is just taking away the essence of a date.
Einstein proved with the special law of relativity that time is relative to the person who is experiencing it. Thus it is "relative".
As to the nitrogen, I think that the reason for the off-gassing could be anyone's guess at this point and your theory is as valid as anyone else's.
Exactly my point. Time is relative to the frame of reference, but is time really a relative concept? No, its not. I quoted the example of live space ship feed that we were watching back then, for the astronauts, the fact that 'at the same point of time' we were watching it, shows that we reduce our frames within common lines and then compare, however the lapse period between two moments (say time period between two seconds) no matter where you go in space, will never change, unless of course our definition of 'a second' is changed. What does this show? simply we need to go back and assess the very presumptions we began with.
As far as the nitrogen is concerned, even earth has a very high nitrogen content (close to seventy percent), what Pluto is going through, could give us hints on what the earth might've gone through when we weren't even close to being here. all through we've been speculating, just that the evidences we substantiate with keep getting better.
Relativity and the quirks and quarks of quantum mechanics can tend to twist one's brain. Clearly, the universe is a complex case and understanding it helps us to understand ourselves. Though is any piece of quantum physics as difficult to explain as a woman? (men would agree with me)
Like they say, the only permanence is change, similarly, in not-understanding, lies the answer. (the women would agree when I say that they're all about change)
Real is the new future.
As in – a woman's right to change her mind. Yes…and to rearrange furniture and to buy shoes (and other accessories) to change her look. Yeah.
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