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NASA Announces That Pluto Has Icebergs Floating On Glaciers of Nitrogen Ice (blastingnews.com)

Posted by timothy on from the offshore-colonies dept.

MarkWhittington writes: The most recent finding from New Horizons show that icebergs have broken off from the hills surrounding the Sputnik Planum, a glacier of nitrogen ice, and are floating slowly across its surface, eventually to cluster together in places like the Challenger Colles, informally named after the crew of the space shuttle Challenger, which was lost just over 30 years ago. The feature is an especially high concentration of icebergs, measuring 37 by 22 miles. The icebergs float on the nitrogen ice plain because water ice is less dense than nitrogen ice.

15 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. Ob by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

    And it's still not a planet? You bastards!

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re: Ob by Namarrgon · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's spherical, it orbits a star, it should be a planet.

      And by the same definition, so should Ceres. Nobody ever thinks of Ceres. Always being kicked around and forgotten by school teachers, and then exploited by both Earth and Mars.. #freeceres #waterislife #opa

      --
      Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
    2. Re: Ob by ralphius · · Score: 2

      See this excellent answer on stackexchange http://astronomy.stackexchange... for a really good explanation of why Pluto had to become a dwarf planet. Basically, if they didn't create a new category we would end up with 10 or twenty new "planets" that fitted very similar physical criteria to Pluto.

  2. Re:Space Sex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Try it on Earth first, then you can compare.

  3. Original NASA article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why can't we link to the original NASA article?

    http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-mysterious-floating-hills

    1. Re:Original NASA article by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not Forbes. I count that as a win.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:Original NASA article by Streetlight · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The picture in the original NASA article to me shows arrangements like some chemical structures including perhaps fused rings. There is a nice hexagonal ring in the middle of the pic, much like a benzene ring, with some substitution. Do we have some kind of spontaneous formation of low energy structures here? All this is really neat.

      --
      In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    3. Re:Original NASA article by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 2

      When you have a layer of soap bubbles floating on water, the various forces will lead to a situation of lowest-energy / lowest forces needed to maintain structures / least material in 'cell walls' etc. Which -on a surface- happen to be hexagonal structures.

      Probably something similar is going on here? And sometimes -given the right conditions!- perhaps the same may even happen for 'permanent' structures like rocks or mountain ridges?

    4. Re:Original NASA article by camg188 · · Score: 2

      Link to BlastingNews instead of the original NASA source is a fail.
      Maybe timothy has some connection to BlastingNews.

      BTW, why is everything on Slashdot now posted by timothy? (whose profile link has been blocked)

  4. Icebergs float on glaciers by Nutria · · Score: 2

    WTF???

    I can imagine them slowly sliding downhill, but "blastingnews" seems to not know what "float" means.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    1. Re:Icebergs float on glaciers by spork+invasion · · Score: 2

      Actually, NASA used the term "float" to describe it because the water ice is less dense than the ice dominated by nitrogen. So, yes, the icebergs are floating.

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      I hate all anonymous shitbags. Log in, you filthy bastards.
    2. Re:Icebergs float on glaciers by Rei · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nitrogen ices at these temperatures, while crystalline, have rather low viscosity. If you put weight on them, they slowly diffuse around it until the object either sinks or is buoyantly balanced out. The latter happens in the case of water ice.

      Also, it's worth noting that it's not pure nitrogen ices, it's a nitrogen-carbon monoxide-methane eutectic. Nitrogen is the most common component, however. Also, there are multiple crystal phases that can be taken, depending on the conditions. Nitrogen ices are most famous for having some rather "explosive" phase transitions between different states.

      --
      It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
    3. Re:Icebergs float on glaciers by Rei · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, it does not form "one huge crystal". Nitrogen ices at these temperatures have little structural integrity. It was well known before we got to Pluto that if we saw any sort of relevant topography, we'd know immediately that it was from water ice, as nitrogen ices are so weak that they'd just flow slack over time.

      --
      It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
  5. Re:Plutonic Warming by spork+invasion · · Score: 3, Informative

    Pluto is getting colder. It has a highly eccentric orbit and right now that's taking Pluto farther from the Sun. As a result, temperatures will decrease on Pluto.

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    I hate all anonymous shitbags. Log in, you filthy bastards.
  6. Definitely a planet by sandbagger · · Score: 2

    Done and dusted.

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    ---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.