#tholins

[musicmakesyousmart]

Rob Michalchuk - Tholins

Quagga Curious Sounds

2015

[plutosavior]

Pluto's surface and geology studied via opposition observations and lab simulations

Six years after the New Horizons spacecraft returned close-up images of Pluto, researchers are teasing out more information about its geology and surface.

[spaceflight-insider]

Surface, geology of Pluto studied via opposition observations

Some six years after #NASA's #NewHorizon spacecraft flyby of #Pluto, researchers are still teasing out more information about this icy world.

The left half of the heart-shaped feature the surface of Pluto is a glacier known as Sputnik Planitia. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI Nearly six years after NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft revealed close up images of Pluto to the world, researchers are teasing out more information about its geology and surface through ground-based observations and laboratory simulations. (more…)

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[wonderofscience-blog]

Geological Activity All But Confirmed On Pluto In Latest Research

Geological Activity All But Confirmed On Pluto In Latest Research

Since New Horizons flew past Pluto in July 2015, weve been treated to countless images and theories about what has proved to be a fascinating world, from evidence for iceberg-like featuresto suspected cryovolcanoes on the surface. Now, in a series of fivepapers published in Science this week, scientists have presented their research so far on the Plutonian system, and what it means for our…

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[startswithabang]

Pluto's Color Variations Finally Make Sense: Explained By Methane Ice In The Sun

“The ultraviolet sunlight ionizes methane, setting off a chain of events that creates tholins -- red-colored hydrocarbon compounds -- that get deposited at various locations. It's only where fresh, white methane snow covers the tholin-rich regions that a white color reappears. The next time we visit Pluto, this world's colorscape will appear very different.“

The New Horizons mission surprised everyone last July when it revealed Pluto to be a world that varied significantly in both terrain and color. Instead of a uniform, reddish-hued icy world, it was revealed to have mountains, craters, smooth plains, pitted regions and more, which range in color from white to yellow to deep red. This was initially a mystery, but subsequent analysis has revealed that Pluto's atmosphere and outer surface consists of a great many volatile molecules, including water, nitrogen and methane. While water ice and nitrogen ice simply sublimate, methane undergoes a complex interaction with ultraviolet light, resulting in the production of tholins, which turn the surface red where they're deposited. The story is still unfolding, but freshly snow-capped regions and pictures of the entire world support this idea.

[universetoday]

New Horizon's Team Delves into the Mystery of Charon's "Red Pole"

New Horizon’s Team Delves into the Mystery of Charon’s “Red Pole”

Details of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, are revealed in this image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken July 13, 2015, from a distance of 289,000 miles (466,000 kilometers), combined with color information obtained by New Horizons’ Ralph instrument on the same day. The distinctive red marking in Charon’s north polar region is currently being studied by scientists.…

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