Pluto is alive—but where is the heat coming from? [Planet looks relatively young]

Science ^ | 07/18/2015 | Eric Hand

[SeekAndFind]

[JohnBrowdie]

kuiper belt object. we need to get past the lovable disney character.

[BenLurkin]

[steve86]

Really, water ice? I assumed we were talking about methane "ice" or something else.

[maro]

It’s a deathstar. Isn’t it obvious?

[Cementjungle]

It’s got to be pretty darned cold out there, so must be water with antifreeze in it.

[Alas Babylon!]

That is Pluto's moon Charon; not Pluto. Here's Pluto:

[Alas Babylon!]

Side by side, relative size:

Charon's a monster of a big moon compared to Pluto!

[JohnBrowdie]

[Mr Apple]

What the mission team did have in hand Tuesday morning was a new image of Pluto’s peach-colored face, taken the night before, at a resolution of 4 kilometers per pixel, 1000 times better than images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Exellent post SeekAndFind, thank you.

[b4its2late]

I thought they blew off Pluto as a planet a few years ago... Or am I wrong?

[yarddog]

For a couple of weeks I was afraid they were not going to get any really good photos of Pluto. Those they were showing were blurry.

They finally ended up being really clear.

I read a discussion on whether Pluto should be called a planet or not and I think the best argument was that it should be.

[Squawk 8888]

Pluto is classified as a “dwarf planet”- massive enough to collapse into a sphere but not big enough to clear other objects from its orbital path. Ceres and Vesta, formerly classified as asteroids, also qualify as dwarf planets.

[hoosierham]

Keep in mind that resolution of 4 kilometers per pixel is still going to miss important details. This was a recon run at high speed not a really detailed survey like the latest Mars orbiter that detected car-sized objects from orbit.If only the planetary probes had the money given to the enemies of modern life we could be getting LOTS more data .

[plain talk]

crater-free and therefore relatively young,

How do they know it is young? Is it possible there are fewer asteroids and crap flying around that far out in the solar system?

[JoeProBono]

[Buttons12]

Is it possible there are fewer asteroids and crap flying around that far out in the solar system?

One would think so. And that its inclination of 17 degrees would also keep it out of the line of fire. But what do I know.

[Lurking Libertarian]

It’s a deathstar. Isn’t it obvious?

Clifford Simak had a different explanation in his great SF story "Construction Shack."

[Lurking Libertarian]

Is it possible there are fewer asteroids and crap flying around that far out in the solar system?

All the meteors and comets that have hit the earth and the moon have come from outside our solar system, and were attracted by the Sun's gravity.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Sorry, should have given you a link: Construction Shack, by Clifford D. Simak (1973).