NASA
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As soon counted scientists, mountains are barely 100 million years old (a little compared to 4.56 billion years old, which counts the solar system) . Their calculations relied on the lack of meteor craters that had to bombard Pluto for billions of years. It seems, therefore, that this region of the globe – located just under the broad to 1.6 thousand. km “heart” known from earlier pictures and occupying 1 percent. its surface – is still geologically active.
What drives this process on far from the sun and cold as a bone dwarf planet? In the area there is still no large celestial bodies – as warming their moons of Jupiter or Saturn – in which gravity could heat up.
Scientists do not yet know the answer to that question.
almost the entire surface of Pluto, scientists have also discovered the frozen backwater of methane and nitrogen.
Image icy peaks was done by New Horizons, when she was just 77 thousand. km from Pluto (you can recognize objects at him with less than 2 km length.). On the photographs taken during closest approach to the dwarf planet – a distance of 12.5 thousand. km, we still have to wait. NASA announced a press conference for the night from Friday to Saturday in our time – can then reveal finally the super sharp image of the entire disc Pluto? The Americans will submit them to images taken by the probe globe in many wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation – which will capture a huge amount of detail.
Surely we still have a lot of emotions – New Horizons will transfer to Earth data from your flight circle … Pluto for the next year and a half.
So far, the probe has sent a very clear picture of Charon, the largest moon of Pluto, whose diameter is barely half the size than the diameter of dwarf planet. It was taken from a distance of 466 thousand. km.
It shows the grand canyon stretching for 1 thousand. km around the lunar equator. And second – at the top right “corner” photos – the depth of which is estimated at 7-9 km. Charon also surprised the researchers – is on the very few craters, and thus its surface must be geologically young, perhaps is still active. Scientists also wonder, what material layer (dark spot in the picture) is in arrears in the vicinity of the north pole of the moon. For now, they called it Mordor.
New Horizons also sent to Earth as the first image shaped Hydra – one of the tiny moons of Pluto. Previously known as the fuzzy dot appears today Hydra scientists as … rozpikselowana bone.
The mission of the US probe New Horizons closed the pioneering stage of exploration of the solar system. Dolecieliśmy have all the globes that we call planets. I got to the latter, who once was the ninth planet of our System, and now – after the decision of the International Astronomical Union in 2006. – Is one of the dwarf planets. In our lifetime probably we will not see already that close any new planet – regular or dwarf.
New Horizons has limited room for maneuver. Its maneuvering thrusters are powered by hydrazine, which is not much, so it can greatly change the course. But the scientists would like to see in the coming years the probe has visited one or two Kuiper asteroid belt, which Pluto is the largest celestial body.
Hubble Space Telescope recently found the two candidates, distant about two or three years traveling . This ice-rock lumps with a diameter of 30-50 km. Scientists within a few months decide which of them will probe for a short date. Perhaps the New Horizons encounters also some unknown, new objects?
But the next dwarf planets already visited. To Eris – a rival Pluto in the Kuiper belt – is too far away. Also for dwarf planets Haumea and Makemake is not the way.
Thanks generator-powered 11 grams of plutonium-238 dioxide, which heat is converted to electricity, the probe should operate for about 20 years. At the beginning of the mission, 9.5 years ago generator to supply him with 240 watts of power, and by the time your trip around Pluto, it fell to approx. 200 watts. When New Horizons distance to within almost 15 billion km from the Sun (it is now 4.5 billion kilometers from us), stops and lose contact with her.
But she will be flying on. It is the fifth probe in the history of space exploration, which was on the trajectory escape from the solar system. As the probe Pioneer-10, Pioneer-11, as well as the Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 from the time it leaves the solar system, moving in the direction of the nearest stars in the constellation Sagittarius.
Why do so many look for?
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