NASA has made about 100 discovery of Pluto in three months

The mission of New Horizons has been extremely fruitful. The spacecraft flew past Pluto in July 2015 and continues to transmit data back to Earth. Over the past three months, the scientists have reviewed what is known about the dwarf planet and its five satellites.

Alan Stern (Alan Stern), NASA's principal investigator, and colleagues published an article in the journal Science « Pluto system: first results Research New Horizons », which summarizes the first months of research and new discoveries are published, some of which have not been reported previously.

Whole article listed nearly a hundred discoveries that NASA has made three months.

Before the unit "New Horizons" Pluto flew, scientists expected to discover a dead stone cold with lots of craters. Instead, they found something surprising. Stunningly beautiful, strange and geologically active world, the surface of which resembles a wrinkled skin of a dragon, a huge ice mountains and other geological objects.



"This is surprising: it was assumed that Pluto because of its small size, and lost all the heat has turned into an icy world without significant geological activity, - says Hilke Schlichting (Hilke Schlichting), a professor at MIT and co-author of a scientific article. - If we can understand the origin of geological activity on Pluto, it may also help to explain the geological activity on some icy satellites of Saturn and Jupiter ».

Pluto is the companion of the giant planet, which would warm him with their gravity. He is alone in space and somehow maintains the geological activity on their own. Scientists have yet to explain this mechanism.

One of the most interesting areas on Pluto - Plain Sputnik Planum, covered in nitrogen ice, with signs of fluid ice (apparently, glaciers descend from the mountains). Sputnik Planum plain devoid of craters, that is a new formation in the geological sense.



Do scientists have some ideas that can be the cause of geologic activity on Pluto. One suggestion - that beneath the surface of the planet is ocean.

New Horizons spacecraft continues its way through the Kuiper belt, continuously transmitting data back to Earth. The mission New Horizons continues to work, liaising with the device, and processing new information. As soon unit guided to the other object in this part space.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/264074/