Cosmic icebergs bob atop frozen nitrogen sea in Pluto’s heart

Scientist have spotted hills made of ice floating in a sea of frozen nitrogen in Pluto’s “heart,” one of the dwarf planet’s must distinct regions because of its shape.

NASA reports that the isolated hills may be fragments of water ice from the surrounding uplands. They’re spread across a vast plain of nitrogen-dominated ice known as Sputnik Planum, the heart’s western lobe, and are likely broken fragments of the mountains found on its far western edge.

What enables the hills to float is a simple matter of chemistry: water ice is less dense than nitrogen ice. A blog post on NASA’s website describes the hills as moving “like icebergs in Earth’s Arctic Ocean.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0205/Cosmic-icebergs-bob-atop-frozen-nitrogen-sea-in-Pluto-s-heart

Pluto’s Mysterious, Floating Hills

The nitrogen ice glaciers on Pluto appear to carry an intriguing cargo: numerous, isolated hills that may be fragments of water ice from Pluto’s surrounding uplands. These hills individually measure one to several miles or kilometers across, according to images and data from NASA’s New Horizons mission.

The hills, which are in the vast ice plain informally named Sputnik Planum within Pluto’s ‘heart,’ are likely miniature versions of the larger, jumbled mountains on Sputnik Planum’s western border. They are yet another example of Pluto’s fascinating and abundant geological activity.

Because water ice is less dense than nitrogen-dominated ice, scientists believe these water ice hills are floating in a sea of frozen nitrogen and move over time like icebergs in Earth’s Arctic Ocean. The hills are likely fragments of the rugged uplands that have broken away and are being carried by the nitrogen glaciers into Sputnik Planum. ‘Chains’ of the drifting hills are formed along the flow paths of the glaciers. When the hills enter the cellular terrain of central Sputnik Planum, they become subject to the convective motions of the nitrogen ice, and are pushed to the edges of the cells, where the hills cluster in groups reaching up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) across.

At the northern end of the image, the feature informally named Challenger Colles – honoring the crew of the lost space shuttle Challenger – appears to be an especially large accumulation of these hills, measuring 37 by 22 miles (60 by 35 kilometers). This feature is located near the boundary with the uplands, away from the cellular terrain, and may represent a location where hills have been ‘beached’ due to the nitrogen ice being especially shallow.

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-mysterious-floating-hills

NASA discovers icebergs on Pluto

Pluto has icebergs, NASA revealed today. By analyzing data and images returned by the New Horizons spacecraft, scientists determined that these icebergs are actually very large. They measure several miles across, and traverse the icy plains region being called Sputnik Planum, which makes up half of the large heart shape on the dwarf planet’s now familiar face.

New Horizons scientists believe that these iceberg clusters are smaller, less mature versions of nearby mountains. Over time, these hills break free from the mountains and follow the flow of the nitrogen-rich glaciers that make up Sputnik Planum. These iceberg chains are slowly dragged out into the plains in the path of the drifting glaciers. Convection forces eventually push them back out toward the shoreline, where they form clusters that stretch as far as 12 miles (20 kilometers) across.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/4/10916782/nasa-pluto-icebergs-new-horizons

Top space stories of 2015: Pluto and its moons revealed

When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto, Earth watched and celebrated. “The target didn’t disappoint,” says Principal Investigator S. Alan Stern. “It’s absolutely stunning.”

And even though the science collection lasted just months, the New Horizons mission had been decades in the making. NASA chose the mission in 2001, the spacecraft launched in 2006, and it reached Pluto on July 14, 2015.

Seeing the pixelated blobs of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, evolve into complex worlds through the eye of New Horizons was rewarding, satisfying, and awesome, says Stern. That’s because everything about Pluto surprised scientists. They expected a frozen, cratered, and long-dead world with an equally old-looking system of moons. Instead, Pluto’s surface is young, with smooth frozen plains, icy mountains as high as the U.S. Rockies, topography that resemble dunes, a glacial lake, and ice that has recently flowed around other features in the same way that glaciers move on Earth’s surface. The scientists estimate that the uncratered swaths of terrain are 100 million years old, while other regions are billions of years in age.

http://www.astronomy.com/magazine/news/2015/12/pluto-and-its-moons-revealed

TOP SPACE STORIES OF 2015: PLUTO AND ITS MOONS REVEALED

Seeing the pixelated blobs of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, evolve into complex worlds through the eye of New Horizons was rewarding, satisfying, and awesome, says Stern. That’s because everything about Pluto surprised scientists. They expected a frozen, cratered, and long-dead world with an equally old-looking system of moons. Instead, Pluto’s surface is young, with smooth frozen plains, icy mountains as high as the U.S. Rockies, topography that resemble dunes, a glacial lake, and ice that has recently flowed around other features in the same way that glaciers move on Earth’s surface. The scientists estimate that the uncratered swaths of terrain are 100 million years old, while other regions are billions of years in age.

Top space stories of 2015: Pluto and its moons revealed

New Horizons Returns First of the Best Images of Pluto

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has sent back the first in a series of the sharpest views of Pluto it obtained during its July flyby – and the best close-ups of Pluto that humans may see for decades.

Each week the piano-sized New Horizons spacecraft transmits data stored on its digital recorders from its flight through the Pluto system on July 14. These latest pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto, with resolutions of about 250-280 feet (77-85 meters) per pixel – revealing features less than half the size of a city block on Pluto’s diverse surface. In these new images, New Horizons captured a wide variety of cratered, mountainous and glacial terrains.

“These close-up images, showing the diversity of terrain on Pluto, demonstrate the power of our robotic planetary explorers to return intriguing data to scientists back here on planet Earth,” said John Grunsfeld, former astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “New Horizons thrilled us during the July flyby with the first close images of Pluto, and as the spacecraft transmits the treasure trove of images in its onboard memory back to us, we continue to be amazed by what we see.”

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-returns-first-of-the-best-images-of-pluto

NEW HORIZONS RETURNS FIRST OF THE BEST IMAGES OF PLUTO

Each week the piano-sized New Horizons spacecraft transmits data stored on its digital recorders from its flight through the Pluto system on July 14. These latest pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto, with resolutions of about 250-280 feet (77-85 meters) per pixel – revealing features less than half the size of a city block on Pluto’s diverse surface. In these new images, New Horizons captured a wide variety of cratered, mountainous and glacial terrains.

New Horizons Returns First of the Best Images of Pluto

Pluto in 3-D

 Global stereo mapping of Pluto’s surface is now possible, as images taken from multiple directions are downlinked from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. Stereo images will eventually provide an accurate topographic map of most of the hemisphere of Pluto seen by New Horizons during the July 14 flyby, which will be key to understanding Pluto’s geological history.

This example, which requires red/blue stereo glasses for viewing, shows a region 180 miles (300 kilometers) across, centered near longitude 130 E, latitude 20 N (the red square in the global context image). North is to the upper left. The image shows an ancient, heavily cratered region of Pluto, dotted with low hills and cut by deep fractures indicating extension of Pluto’s crust.

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/pluto-in-3-d

PLUTO IN 3-D

 Stereo images will eventually provide an accurate topographic map of most of the hemisphere of Pluto seen by New Horizons during the July 14 flyby, which will be key to understanding Pluto’s geological history.

This example, which requires red/blue stereo glasses for viewing, shows a region 180 miles (300 kilometers) across, centered near longitude 130 E, latitude 20 N (the red square in the global context image). North is to the upper left. The image shows an ancient, heavily cratered region of Pluto, dotted with low hills and cut by deep fractures indicating extension of Pluto’s crust.

http://www.infowars.com/pluto-in-3-d/

No Surf, but Maybe Dunes in NASA’s Latest Pluto Photos Dunes a surprise find on Pluto’s icy surface

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