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- Pluto rose from the smallest planet to the largest and brightest Kuiper Belt object. Its demotion from “ Planet” acquired the new name , “ Dwarf Planet”.
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- The New Horizons Spacecraft arrived to visit Pluto in July 2015.
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- Pluto has an atmosphere 52 miles thick with multiple “haze” layers extending as high as 100 miles above the surface. This enormous atmosphere is composed of nitrogen, methane, and other gases that evaporate off the surface when Pluto’s orbit is closest to the Sun. It takes Pluto 240 years to complete a single orbit.
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- Pluto’s orbit has 120 degree tilt on top of being highly elliptical which causes intense variations in those four long seasons.
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- Pluto’s density means that about 70% of its mass is rock. In contrast Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, is 40% rock with its primary composition water-ice.
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- Pluto’s diameter is 1,473 miles. It has 5 moons ranging from:
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----------------------------Charon ----------- 750 miles
----------------------------Hydra ------------ 38 to 104 miles ( not perfectly spherical)
----------------------------Nix --------------- 29 to 85 miles
----------------------------Kerberos --------- 8 to 21 miles
----------------------------Styx --------------- 6 to 16 miles
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- The smooth, dark regions on Pluto appear to be wind blown dunes. But, that is strange because Pluto’s atmosphere is so thin. It could be that its atmosphere was much thicker in the past.
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- Before the New Horizon’s flyby astronomers expected to find a frozen, cratered, long-dead world. Instead, they find that Pluto’s surface is young with frozen plains, icy mountains as high as the Rockies, dunes , glacial lakes, and flowing nitrogen ice. The surface ranges in age form 100 million years to several billions of years old. The lack of meteor impacts prove the recent geological activity. To have geological activity there must be some form of internal heating?
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- The dark regions of the surface may be coloration of frozen methane irradiated by the Sun and converted into tar-like compounds.
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- Mountains extend to 11,000 feet. Their peaks composed of water ice. The water ice is as hard as granite when its temperature is -390F.
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- The material flowing down the mountains appears to be nitrogen ice. Polygon depressions on the surface of the plains are likely formed by relatively warm material seeping for below the surface.
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- The mystery encountered is to discover, “ what is the energy source driving all this activity?”
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- Other reviews available include - #1781 with reference to four others
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---------------- Pluto Diameter ----------- 1,473 miles ( 18% Earth’s)
------------------------- Mass -------------- 1.31*10^22 kg ( 0.22% Earth’s)
------------------------- Density ----------- 2.05 g/cm^3
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----------------- Charon Diameter -------- 737 miles
------------------------- Mass -------------- 0.156*10^22 kg
------------------------- Density ----------- 1.60 g/cm^3
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--- Some reviews are at: -------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
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- to: ------- jamesdetrick@comcast.net ------ “Jim Detrick” -----------
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----- 707-536-3272 ---------------------- Sunday, December 20, 2015 -----
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