. The 50 most exciting discoveries regarding Pluto have been announced by the New Horizons team of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California at the 47th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences, National Harbor, Maryland. New Horizons, an interplanetary space probe was launched as part NASA’s New Frontiers Program. It took place 19th Jan, 2006,. On 14th July, 2015, it flew very close (12,500 kilometers – 7,800 miles) to Pluto’s surface, making it the first spacecraft ever to explore the dwarf planet. Jim Green from NASA Headquarters, Washington said that the New Horizons mission had changed everything we believed we knew about Pluto. This is why scientists explore: to satisfy our curiosity and ask deeper questions about the past and future. Scientists discovered two mountain formations on Pluto’s surface that could possibly be ice volcanoes. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI. There may be two ice volcanoes at Pluto’s surface. New Horizons scientists combined photos of Pluto’s surface into 3-D maps. These maps suggest that Pluto’s most striking mountains could possibly be cryovolcanoes (i.e. There are ice volcanoes which could have been active during the past geological period. Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado is Mission Principal Investigator. He said that it was hard to believe how quickly our views of Pluto and its Moons evolve as each week brings in new data. Pluto is rapidly becoming a star in the solar system, thanks to the new discoveries from these data. “Moreover, I would wager that most planetary scientists will consider any of our major recent findings about one planet amazing. It is amazing to have all of them.” Both ice-volcano candidates measure tens and miles in size, with several miles between their summits. Oliver White is a New Horizons postdoctoral research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field in California. He said that these mountains have a big hole at their summit. On Earth, this usually means one thing: a volcano. They could be volcanic, so the depression at the summit would have been formed by material being erupted below.” Oliver White, a New Horizons postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, said: “These are big mountains with a large hole in their summit, and on Earth that generally means one thing – a volcano. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI. Although they look similar to volcanoes here on Earth that spew molten rock, cryovolcanoes in Pluto will likely emit a melted mixture of nitrogen and ammonia. Scientists will be able to determine the evolution of Pluto’s atmosphere and geophysics if they confirm that there are volcanoes. According to New Horizons data, the age of Pluto’s surface varies from young to old. New Horizons data suggests that at least two, if not all four of Pluto’s smaller moons might have merged. (Credits NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI). Space scientists use the number of impacts from craters to calculate how old a planet’s surface is. The density of impact craters tends to be higher in older regions. Based on crater counts, Pluto’s surface area shows that some areas date back just four billion years after the formation of the planets in our solar system. But, large areas of the dwarf planet’s surface are ‘born yesterday’ geologically. These areas were likely formed in the past 10 millions years. The region is called Sputnik Planum and it appears to the left of Pluto’s “heart”. According to photos received, there are no craters in this area. The presence of intermediate terrains (middle-aged) on Pluto’s surface is also revealed by new crater count data. This suggests that Sputnik Planum does not exist as an anomaly. This means that Pluto was likely to have been active geologically for most of its 4 billion-year-old history. Kelsi Singer is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She said that they have mapped over a thousand Pluto craters, each with a different size and appearance. “I expect that cratering research like this will give us important new insight into how this portion of the solar system was formed.” New Horizons data shows that Pluto’s surface is ranging in age between very young and ancient. Image: Credit to NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute. The Solar System’s basic building blocks The New Horizons team claims that the crater count is giving them a fresh insight into the Kuiper Belt structure. The Kuiper Belt is Pluto’s home. It extends from Neptune’s orbit (at 30AU), to around 50AU from the Sun (1AU = average distance between the Earth and the Sun). Pluto, its moon Charon and its smaller satellite have few smaller craters. The Kuiper Belt is the most underexplored area of the solar system. This means that scientists think there were fewer small objects in the Kuiper Belt. This text describes a’smaller’ object as one that is less than half a mile in size. New Horizons scientists are now questioning whether Kuiper Belt objects were formed from smaller objects. This is a change to an old model. Other models support the idea that bigger Kuiper Belt objects could have been formed directly due to the dearth of smaller craters on Pluto and Charon. They were roughly the same size as now. Researchers are excited by the new evidence that suggests most Kuiper Belt objects were born large’. The 40 kilometer-wide KBO (Kuiper Belt Object), which is called 2014 MU 69, may be the next target of New Horizons. This will allow for the first observation of a pristine and original component of the solar system. New Horizons is an interplanetary spacecraft that was launched under NASA’s New Frontiers Program. Image: Wikipedia. Pluto has multiple spinning and merged moons. The New Horizons team continues to learn a lot about Pluto’s incredible system of moons and the fascinating properties that they possess. Nearly all other moons in the solar system have one side that faces the Earth. This is called synchronous rotation. Pluto’s smaller moons, however, are quite different. Pluto’s smaller moons spin quickly. Hydra is its farthest distant moon and rotates 89 in a single orbit around Pluto. These spin rates may not be constant because Charon’s powerful torque prevents small moons from falling into synchronous rotation. Scientists were surprised by how Puto’s moons wobbled. Mark Showalter is a co-investigator at the SETI Institute Mountain View in California. He said, “Pluto’s moons behave like…”
