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Quaoar Showing Evidence of Volcanic Activity

Posted by michael on from the long-way-out dept.

calibanDNS writes "Recent findings at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy indicate that there may be volcanic activity on at least one object in the Kuiper belt."

3 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Someone needs to say something by LeninZhiv · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, to break the silence, I'll chip in my two cents:

    1) It's really really cool to think that that far out into the solar system there could be geological activity going on. The sun's gotta be something like only -3 magnitude from out there.

    2) This has got to be really hard to verify or know much about; although at least now when we get around to sending further probes into the Kuiper belt Quaoar will probably be way up there on the priority scale, which is a good thing.

    Come to think of it, isn't there a probe that was recently launched headed to the Kuiper belt? Anyone know if by some great surrendipity it might be travelling in this region? I look forward to theories as to why Quaoar rather than Pluto or Sedna would be the first signs of geo activity in the outer solar system.

    Just some random thoughts from an amateur astronomer...

    1. Re:Someone needs to say something by shpoffo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So then the Quaoar scenario would seem to show that:

      a) there is some continuous process of heat
      b) there is some form of radiation shielding
      c) there is another process at work that mimics/underlies what we see in heat (spin dynamics, sufficient gravitation, etc?)

      additions, subtractions, comments (from anyone)?

      .
      -shpoffo

  2. Re:a bit of wishful thinking... by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Large collisions would be pretty rare in the Kuiper Belt. There just isn't enough stuff around. Worse, they occur at low speeds. So you wouldn't expect to generate a lot of melting that way. It's possible, of course. But it's an eyebrow-raiser.

    "Particulate venting"? You mean volatile sublimation, like comets when they get near the Sun? I don't know of any asteroids that do that. And Quaoar is much too far from the Sun to expect that sort of behavior. (The maximum temperature you would expect is around 50 Kelvins. And that assumes an albedo of 0, which can't be the case if they can see it in the visible wavelengths.)