» Home > In the News

lots on Pluto this past week

21 July 2015
Astronomy

The flyby of Pluto by a NASA mission to the far reaches of the solar system has caught the imagination of the media, and Joe Public. At http://phys.org/print356246204.html … we have icy mountains on Pluto and some nice pictures of Charon, its largest moon (Pluto has 5 moons). A close up image of an equatorial region of Pluto shows up a mountain range with peaks as high as 11,000 feet. There is also a large heart shaped feature – probably ice. Charon on the other hand has a 6 mile long canyon. It has no mountains, as such, but what is described as a swathe of cliffs and troughs which suggested underground fracturing of the crust.

At http://phys.org/print356291350.html … tells us what will happen to the spacecraft now it has gone past Pluto

At http://phys.org/print356337796.html … is about a mountain on Charon – in the middle of a moat. In other words, a depression with a mountain inside.

At http://phys.org/print356373335.html … features the heart shaped plain – with a segmented surface (somewhat like a tortoise shell)

At http://phys.org/print356336385.html … is on the discovery of Pluto – a nice bit of history

At http://phys.org/print356336611.html … is on the moons of Pluto

On top of that we have a story on Mars – at http://phys.org/print356253419.html … Mars, the red planet, may not have had seas – or flowing water. Instead, it is more likely to have been a cold planet, and icy. This could account for the water erosion  features found to date

Skip to content