Distance often leads to Apathy. Pluto – once a planet – found itself on the receiving end of this. For more than three quarters of a century after it was designated as one of the nine planets of our solar system, we knew precious little about it. Some called it an inert ball of ice and others believed it. However, we finally found enough about it to know otherwise. In 2006, Pluto was declared a ‘dwarf planet’ because it “could not clear its neighbourhood of other objects”. The small matter of 5.07 billion kilometres between us and Pluto rendered us unaware of the fact that Pluto liked to keep its posse of celestial bodies around it all time – a planet with its gravitational force typically doesn’t let other objects not orbiting it to stay in its vicinity. The ouster though was met with outrage from all corners – the permanence of the solar system was something we had hardcoded into our brains. What now? In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft unearthed something that was huge news. No, Pluto wouldn’t be a planet once more. But it was something that immediately brought a smile to our faces. It turned out that the first images captured of Pluto had a touching ‘heart-shaped’ feature in the labyrinth of craters, ridges, mountains and valleys. More importantly, the images disproved theories that Pluto was a cold feature less ball of ice. Redemption at last?
A wide heart-shaped area known unofficially as Tombaugh Regio (after Clyde Tombaugh; regio is Latin for region) is another distinct feature on Pluto's soil. The carbon monoxide ice surrounds the left side of the region (an area that takes the form of an ice cream cone). Within the 'heart' of Pluto, other differences in the composition of surface materials have been established.
A rather smooth field in the middle left of Tombaugh Regio is unofficially identified by the New Horizons team as Sputnik Planum, after Sputnik, the first artificial satellite on Earth. This region of the planet of Pluto lacks craters created by meteorite impacts, meaning that the area is very young on a geological time scale, not more than 100 million years old. It's likely that geological processes are still forming and changing this area.
Distance often leads to Apathy. Pluto – once a planet – found itself on the receiving end of this. For more than three quarters of a century after it was designated as one of the nine planets of our solar system, we knew precious little about it. Some called it an inert ball of ice and others believed it. However, we finally found enough about it to know otherwise. In 2006, Pluto was declared a ‘dwarf planet’ because it “could not clear its neighbourhood of other objects”. The small matter of 5.07 billion kilometres between us and Pluto rendered us unaware of the fact that Pluto liked to keep its posse of celestial bodies around it all time – a planet with its gravitational force typically doesn’t let other objects not orbiting it to stay in its vicinity. The ouster though was met with outrage from all corners – the permanence of the solar system was something we had hardcoded into our brains. What now? In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft unearthed something that was huge news. No, Pluto wouldn’t be a planet once more. But it was something that immediately brought a smile to our faces. It turned out that the first images captured of Pluto had a touching ‘heart-shaped’ feature in the labyrinth of craters, ridges, mountains and valleys. More importantly, the images disproved theories that Pluto was a cold feature less ball of ice as the temperature goes as --233 degree Celsius. Redemption at last?
References :
NASA, assessed 1 October 2020, https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/overview/
New Horizons Spacecraft Displays Pluto’s Big Heart, NASA, assessed 1 October 2020, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-spacecraft-displays-pluto-s-big-heart-0
Here are some inspirations for the form and structures in Pluto’s orbit.
References :
Architecture & Design 2015, assessed 28 September 2020, https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/news/floating-waterfront-village-to-high-rise-waterfall#
Atelier Olschinsky 2019, Behance, assessed 30 September 2020, https://www.behance.net/gallery/84953657/ED?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Cspace%20building
Johan Törnlund 2017, Behance, assessed 30 September 2020, https://www.behance.net/gallery/55564241/Spacestation-Designs?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Cspace%20building
Matt Breton-Honeyman, Amélie Savoie-Saumure, and Pascale Julien 2018, Arch Daily, assessed 28 September 2020, https://www.archdaily.com/907054/the-best-student-drawings-of-2018-awarded-by-the-aarhus-school-of-architecture?ad_medium=gallery
Tekkoontan 2014, Deviant Art, assessed 30 September 2020, https://www.deviantart.com/tekkoontan/art/Shadowtide-Floating-Alien-City-Concept-468906894
If Pluto was a Planet! @baishalbarthakur - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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