New Horizons at Pluto

“At Pluto’s temperatures of minus-390 degrees Fahrenheit, these ices can flow like a glacier,” said Bill McKinnon, deputy leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team at Washington University in St. Louis. “In the southernmost region of the heart, adjacent to the dark equatorial region, it appears that ancient, heavily-cratered terrain has been invaded by much newer icy deposits.”
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Does that explain the lack of craters?
 
Yes. Think on it - nitrogen glaciers (nitrogen!). That means there's a whole hydrologic (nitrologic??) cycle: evaporation, precipitation (nitrogen snow!)...
 
I have to admit, I thought Pluto would be uninteresting.
Sorry, Carl. I'm so happy to be mistaken!
 
pgwenthold said:
The idea that we can see an object that is 25 miles across out by Pluto is mind-boggling. That is a LONG way out in space.
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Not to mention being able to aim precisely at them, using preconfigured commands for the craft anticipating their placements at least 4.5 hours ahead of time... The mind boggles how the hell these people manage that
 
CynicalSkeptic said:
Does that explain the lack of craters?
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Not sufficient. Some of that material would have had to flow UP creator rims. Unless they are proposing some sort of superfluid, that sort of thing can't happen. Plus, we would expect other features if it were glacier-like movement, such as end moraines and the like (glacial geology is VERY well known, and any geologist taught in the north would identify them very quickly. They aren't present in the photos I have seen).
 
Dinwar said:
Not sufficient. Some of that material would have had to flow UP creator rims. Unless they are proposing some sort of superfluid, that sort of thing can't happen.
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It happens on earth, not because water is a superfluid, but because it precipitates into craters, not only as liquid rain, but as hail or snow.
 
Craig B said:
It happens on earth, not because water is a superfluid, but because it precipitates into craters, not only as liquid rain, but as hail or snow.
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Neither of which have Ben observed on Pluto. They are essentially the same process as rain--precipitation of water on suspended grains of dust. It is just a question of how much water is added before it hits the ground, and whether it melts before it hits or not. Without weather on Pluto, we are left with either glaciers flowing uphill, or glaciers advancing without doing any scowering and then retreating for no known reason.

To be clear, I have little doubt this sort of thing contributes to SPME of what we are seeing on Pluto. It is just not an adequate explanation for most of it. It is almost certainly a relatively minor component.

Remember, the current ice age isn't as old as Pluto's surface--a hundred million years ago Earth was so warm thermohaline circulation in the oceans stopped. Glaciers move pretty far in a relatively short time (geologically speaking).
 
Another explanation is that there is a hole at the edge of the creator. The fluid would have found the hole and gone it and good bye creator. Or maybe the edge is very weak and so collapsed.
 
rjh01 said:
Another explanation is that there is a hole at the edge of the creator. The fluid would have found the hole and gone it and good bye creator. Or maybe the edge is very weak and so collapsed.
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Again, there's no evidence of such a thing. And again, it doesn't explain the retreat. What would cause glaciers to retract on Pluto? On Earth it's loss of water--glaciers always flow outward, but there's a balance between water added and water lost. When the balance favors water added, they expand; when it favors water lost, they retract. What would make Pluto's glaciers lose water?

But bear in mind that's only one problem--the other is, as I said, the lack of evidence for such an event.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
The creator is holey?
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Won't explain what we see. When glaciers find a weak point, they expand it, in very distinctive ways that just are not present. We see no U-shaped valleys, we see no moranes, we see no outwash (though that may be due to the P/T space of the underside of the glaciers). It's an interesting idea, and certainly was worth a look, but unless someone can present some evidence I am obliged to disagree with this explanation.
 
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