#methane ice

[alxndrasplace]

(NASA)  Solving the Mystery of Pluto’s Giant Blades of Ice

NASA’s New Horizons mission revolutionized our knowledge of Pluto when it flew past that distant world in July 2015. Among its many discoveries were images of strange formations resembling giant knife blades of ice, whose origin had remained a mystery.

Now, scientists have turned up a fascinating explanation for this “bladed terrain”: the structures are made almost entirely of methane ice, and likely formed as a specific kind of erosion wore away their surfaces, leaving dramatic crests and sharp divides.

These jagged geological ridges are found at the highest altitudes on Pluto’s surface, near its equator, and can soar many hundreds of feet into the sky – as high as a New York City skyscraper. They are one of the most puzzling feature types on Pluto, and it now appears the blades are related to Pluto’s complex climate and geological history.

Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

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[24indianews-blog]

NASA discovered Find Giant 'Bite Mark' On Pluto's Surface

NASA discovered Find Giant ‘Bite Mark’ On Pluto’s Surface

Far in the western hemisphere, scientists on NASA’s New Horizons mission have discovered what looks like a giant “bite mark” on Pluto’s surface. The team suspect it may be caused by a process known as sublimation – the transition of a substance from a solid to a gas. The methane ice-rich surface on Pluto may be sublimating away into the atmosphere, exposing a layer of water-ice underneath. The…

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[jenn2d2]

Pluto's Cthulhu region, about the size of Alaska, is characterized by reddish hues in contrast to the more pale, heart-shaped feature known as Sputnik Planum. Cthuhlu likely gets this darker color from tholins, complex organic molecules that form when ultraviolet light strikes simple organic molecules like methane. Tholins have been found on several worlds in the outer solar system, including Titan.

However, higher resolution images of mountains within the Cthulhu region have shown that the upper slopes on the highest peaks are much brighter. The most obvious explanation for this is a methane snow that has condensed out of Pluto's thin atmosphere, scientists say.

"That this material coats only the upper slopes of the peaks suggests methane ice may act like water in Earth's atmosphere, condensing as frost at high altitude," said John Stansberry, a New Horizons science team member from Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Indeed, a spectral analysis found that the bright mountain peaks correlated nearly perfectly with the distribution of methane ice.

(via NASA may have found snow-covered mountains on Pluto | Ars Technica)

[futurenow321-blog]

Methane Ice fuel of the future?