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Pluto May Have Deep Seas and Ancient Tectonic Faults

Posted by samzenpus on from the mi-go-beach dept.

astroengine (1577233) writes "In July 2015 we get our first close look at the dwarf planet Pluto and its moon, Charon — a fact that has scientists hypothesizing more than ever about what we might see there. One of the latest ideas put forward is that perhaps the collision that likely formed Pluto and Charon heated the interior of Pluto enough to give it an internal liquid water ocean, which also gave the small world a short-lived plate tectonics system, like that of Earth."

32 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Okay, so Pluto isn't perfect by erroneus · · Score: 5, Funny

    But seriously. It's barely considered a planet and now people want to point out its faults? Leave Pluto alone!!!

    1. Re:Okay, so Pluto isn't perfect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      This could result in a seismic shift in the way we think about Pluto.

    2. Re:Okay, so Pluto isn't perfect by Virtucon · · Score: 1

      We need to seriously hire that "Leave Britanny Alone" guy to make another video for Pluto.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    3. Re:Okay, so Pluto isn't perfect by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      But what was the influence of social media on the build up to this shift?

    4. Re:Okay, so Pluto isn't perfect by phrostie · · Score: 5, Funny

      They are minor faults

    5. Re:Okay, so Pluto isn't perfect by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

      The shock and awe of the situation was overwhelming. Almost on the scale of a WMD.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    6. Re:Okay, so Pluto isn't perfect by rogoshen1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      world of modified definition?

    7. Re:Okay, so Pluto isn't perfect by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

      You sir, may have excellent potential in the exciting career of government alphabet soup.

      https://www.usajobs.gov/JobSearch/Search/GetResults?Keyword=Alphabet Soup

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  2. It's a Planet by The+Cat · · Score: 1, Informative

    It was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh. Pluto is the only planet to be discovered by an American.

    Tombaugh sat in 30 degree temperatures with a wooden telescope (that he built himself at his own expense) laboriously taking pictures at long intervals so he could measure (by flipping photographic plates back and forth) if anything moved.

    It wasn't until he was able to use a 13-inch astrograph that he found Pluto in 1930. This guy was a stone cold badass. Nobody has any right to deny him his discovery.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

    1. Re:It's a Planet by rossdee · · Score: 2

      " Pluto is the only planet to be discovered by an American."

      What about exoplanets? Surely many of those were discovered by americans.

      Of course they are beyond the jurisdiction of the IAU

    2. Re:It's a Planet by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He discovered the first Kuiper belt object.

      You can think of him as an American Piazzi, if you'd like.

    3. Re:It's a Planet by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Care to offer a definition of "planet" that would include Pluto but rule out Eris/Sedna/Makemake/Haumea/Ceres/etc?

      Pluto is the only planet to be discovered by an American.

      American astronomer Michael Brown discovered Eris, Sedna, Makemake, and Haumea.

      Nobody has any right to deny him his discovery.

      Nobody has. He's still listed as the discoverer of Pluto. Just as Piazzi is still listed as the discoverer of Ceres, even though it too lost its early status as a "planet".

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
    4. Re:It's a Planet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Tombaugh sat in 30 degree temperatures with a wooden telescope (that he built himself at his own expense) ...

      I was thinking to myself that that sounded quite pleasant until I remembered that American degrees aren't quite the same as everyone else's.

    5. Re:It's a Planet by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      Care to offer a definition of "planet" that would include Pluto but rule out Eris/Sedna/Makemake/Haumea/Ceres/etc?

      Why would we want to rule out Eris/Sedna/Makemake/Haumea/Ceres/etc?

      I, for one, am not wedded to nine planets. Or eight. Or fourteen, for that matter....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    6. Re:It's a Planet by gsslay · · Score: 1

      Pluto is the only planet to be discovered by an American.

      How is this in anyway relevant to whether it is a planet or not?

    7. Re:It's a Planet by ChromaticDragon · · Score: 1

      It's all somewhat arbitrary in any case.

      It's all just a matter of what we choose to call things and how we choose to categorize things. Lumping things into categories based on similar characteristics is helpful for a number of reasons.

      If you go back and look at the history of when and why Ceres (and Vista, and Pallas, etc.) was demoted from planetary status, you'll see all sorts of similarities. The continued discovery of Kupier bodies shows Pluto was part of a larger community, just like Ceres.

      What folk mean when they say defining things such that you keep Pluto in and leave Ceres out is that they're looking for a consistent pattern of categorization and nomenclature which minimizes changes. It's simply easier to drop the ninth to to squeeze back in a fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth.

      These continued discoveries create the need for updating our categorizations because they highlight the problem of HAVING ALREADY demoted Ceres, Vista, Pallas, etc. It makes no sense to call these new things planets unless we also do this for the bodies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

    8. Re:It's a Planet by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      It's all somewhat arbitrary in any case.

      Won't argue with that.

      It's all just a matter of what we choose to call things and how we choose to categorize things. Lumping things into categories based on similar characteristics is helpful for a number of reasons.

      And you're telling me this why? Why didn't you also explain that water was wet?

      If you go back and look at the history of when and why Ceres (and Vista, and Pallas, etc.) was demoted from planetary status, you'll see all sorts of similarities. The continued discovery of Kupier bodies shows Pluto was part of a larger community, just like Ceres.

      And, horror of horrors, when we discovered Neptune, we realized it was part of a larger community (of planets). Note that the Kuiper Belt is pretty much as arbitrary as the Asteroid Belt - they're both a region of space with stuff in them. Just like Jupiter's orbit (Jupiter, an indeterminate number of moons, Trojan asteroids, etc), or Earth's.

      What folk mean when they say defining things such that you keep Pluto in and leave Ceres out is that they're looking for a consistent pattern of categorization and nomenclature which minimizes changes. It's simply easier to drop the ninth to to squeeze back in a fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth.

      And here I thought science was about discovering new things, not about minimizing change. My bad..

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    9. Re:It's a Planet by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 1

      I, for one, am not wedded to nine planets. Or eight. Or fourteen, for that matter....

      Fair enough. My mistake. Most people who whine about Pluto in the terms you used want to go back to 9 planets, and only 9, because "tradition".

      I'd prefer to create a, admittedly still arbitrary, broad definition of planet as "any natural object that is above [a certain size**], and is not a star or stellar remnant." So brown dwarves, but not white. The Moon is a planet, as is Titan and the Galilean moons. Pluto is a planet, but so is Charon. And Ceres - as well as hundreds, possibly thousands of KBO/Oort-objects. Plus exo-planets, free-flying planets, etc.

      People could then create official and ad-hoc sub-categories of these "planets". "Major moons". "Major Planets/Dwarf Planets". "Exo-Planets". And, for the whiners, "The Traditional Planets", ie, the magic 9.

      [** "a certain size". I don't really care what that size is, whatever is useful to astronomers/planetologists. Anything smaller would be an "asteroid" (including small moons), down to another arbitrary limit where they become "meteoroids" (rocks and rubble), down to yet another arbitrary limit where they become "dust".]

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
  3. Pluto Rulz! by Virtucon · · Score: 1

    Pluto Rulz! It's still the best planet we've never visited! I say forget Mars, the smart Real Estate investor will be seeking beach front property on Pluto!

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  4. Re:Wormface does not approve of this. by Virtucon · · Score: 1

    I was thinking Emory and Oglethorpe from ATHF, not Wormfaces...

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  5. Ancient Teutonic Knights... by Morpeth · · Score: 1

    ... that's awesome!

    The brain is a funny thing...

    --

    'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
  6. Then's it's a planet. by sandbagger · · Score: 2, Informative

    You hear me? A planet.

    --
    ---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
    1. Re:Then's it's a planet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You hear me? A planet.

      You're entitled to your opinion, even if it's rather non-standard as to what does or doesn't constitute a planet. Personally, I don't think anything that doesn't have a) solid ground and b) an atmosphere to speak of should be considered a planet; as such, I recognize only two planets in the solar system, Venus and Earth. (Unfortunately astronomers keep on disagreeing with me on the matter.)

      Now I'm joking, of course, but really, my definition is at least as good as yours.

      What's more, what people like you fail to realize is that any definition of planet that encompasses Pluto will also encompass many, many other Kuiper belt objects, both discovered and (as of yet) undiscovered. How many planets do you want in your solar system? A hundred? A thousand? A hundred thousand?

      Face it, while Pluto is fairly large, it IS a Kuiper belt object; it's not in a wholly different class the same way that the rocky planets (Mercury to Mars) and the gas giants (Jupiter to Neptune) are.

      And before you ask, no, Pluto cannot be grandfathered in, either: this is science we're talking about, not politics. Astronomy isn't a trade talk where delegates engage in tit-for-tat, it's an attempt to have a professional debate and come up with a unified definition that makes scientific sense.

      So, again - you're free to call everyone and their dog a planet if that's what floats your boat, but if you want to convince the scientific community, you'd better come up with some convincing argument. And it'd better be DAMN good, because the "what makes a planet" cake's been eaten years ago.

  7. "scientists hypothesizing"... by Brad1138 · · Score: 1

    Seems a bit far fetched to me. It could also be where Jimmy Hoffa is buried...

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
    1. Re:"scientists hypothesizing"... by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Would that make him a Plutocrat?

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  8. Re:Wormface does not approve of this. by sconeu · · Score: 2

    Have Space Suit, Will Travel.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  9. If charon was formed at the the formation ... by Viol8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... of the solar system 4 billion years ago and not more recently , then the chances of that water still being liquid without any further external heating - the energy from the sun at plutos orbit is so slight its irrelevant - I suspect are pretty damn close to zero.

  10. Re:Yes, and... by Virtucon · · Score: 2

    That must be painful.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  11. Re:Wormface does not approve of this. by OhSoLaMeow · · Score: 1

    Have Space Suit, Will Travel.

    Go, Heinlein!

    --
    They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
  12. Re:+4 Insightful wtf... by Viol8 · · Score: 1

    I don't know many antifreezes that work at -230C , do you?

  13. Re:Pluto thumbing its nose... by tomofumi · · Score: 1

    Pluto has 5 moons now (latest one discovered in 2012): http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/pl...

  14. Re:+4 Insightful wtf... by Viol8 · · Score: 1

    Pal, any radioactivity inside pluto has long since decayed. Its a TINY world with no internal or external heat source. The chances of anything still being liquid inside are pretty much zero.