New Horizons to flyby Pluto this year

I'm afraid a small hope of other planets in the next few decades is indeed remote. Beyond the obvious problem of a true space drive, the problem of radiation has become more of a deterrent than I at lease would have believed a few decades ago.
 
OK... as I've been well and truly busted... (someone talked)... the ice stuff will be complex to get right. The scientists will know the basics, but there some interesting combinations that can lead to spectacular effects, if you know where to look for them (or like me stumble across things by accident). All I'm saying is there will be surprises that will keep them busy analysing the planet for many many years to come...
 
Serendipity said:
the ice stuff will be complex to get right
Click to expand...
Along with Antimony, water one of the few things that expands on freezing. Most solids sink in their liquid, ordinary Ice doesn't; or ponds, lakes and rivers would freeze solid.
The water ice on Pluto isn't like ordinary ice at all.

Ice may be any one of the 17 known solid crystalline phases of water, or in an amorphous solid state at various densities.
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see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice

Ice IX
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For fictional material in Cat's Cradle, see Ice-nine.
Ice IX is a form of solid water stable at temperatures below 140 K and pressures between 200 and 400 MPa. It has a tetragonal crystal lattice and a density of 1.16 g/cm³, 26% higher than ordinary ice. It is formed by cooling ice III from 208 K to 165 K (rapidly—to avoid forming ice II). Its structure is identical to ice III other than being hydrogen-ordered.

Ordinary water ice is known as ice Ih in the Bridgman nomenclature. Different types of ice, from ice II to ice XVI, have been created in the laboratory at different temperatures and pressures.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-type_model
 
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It appears that the only form of ice stable in Pluto surface conditions is ice XI. However, ice I is metastable WRT ice XI at those temperatures; the transition is thought to take hundreds of thousands of years.
 
Ray McCarthy said:
Along with Antimony, water one of the few things that expands on freezing. Most solids sink in their liquid, ordinary Ice doesn't; or ponds, lakes and rivers would freeze solid.
The water ice on Pluto isn't like ordinary ice at all.


see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice

Ice IX
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For fictional material in Cat's Cradle, see Ice-nine.
Ice IX is a form of solid water stable at temperatures below 140 K and pressures between 200 and 400 MPa. It has a tetragonal crystal lattice and a density of 1.16 g/cm³, 26% higher than ordinary ice. It is formed by cooling ice III from 208 K to 165 K (rapidly—to avoid forming ice II). Its structure is identical to ice III other than being hydrogen-ordered.

Ordinary water ice is known as ice Ih in the Bridgman nomenclature. Different types of ice, from ice II to ice XVI, have been created in the laboratory at different temperatures and pressures.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-type_model
Click to expand...

And this is just water ice - which proves my point of the complexity of the ice structures. Of course there will be compound ices, and liquids and as we've seen from the photos a thin atmosphere. To add to complexity are the chaotic orbits of Pluto moons, which will exert gravitational tides on the planet in (very probably) ever different ways. And where there's pressure, there could be the making of liquids, which could lead to reactions.... the mind keeps on K-boggling...
 
Brian Turner said:
There were some brilliant colour photos in The Independent of Pluto - but I haven't seen anything on the New Horizons site.
Click to expand...
Like this one maybe?
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/pics/lorri-rider.png
And this
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/pics/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release.jpg

You can get at them here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/ They just don't appear to have made them easy to get at from their front page.
 
Yep, this is the one I meant:

P_COLOR2_enhanced_release.jpg
 
Yep, pretty darn spectacular, though the Independent seemed to be getting into a bit of a tizzy about how colourful Pluto has turned out to be and was, I suspect, forgetting that these are enhanced colour images.
 
I saw a comparison of the two objects, and was surprised just how large Charon is relative to Pluto. They're almost a pair, rather than planet and moon.
 
The center of mass (barycenter) of the Pluto–Charon system lies outside either body. Because neither object truly orbits the other, and Charon has 11.6% the mass of Pluto, it has been argued that Charon should be considered to be part of a binary system with Pluto. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) states that Charon is considered to be just a satellite of Pluto, but the idea that Charon might be classified a dwarf planet in its own right may be considered at a later date
Click to expand...

That is one awesome photo and some interesting theories about the fractures around the middle.
 
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