U53A-01
Overview of Key Results from the Exploration of the Pluto System by New Horizons
Friday, 18 December 2015: 13:40
102 (Moscone South)
S Alan Stern1, Harold A Weaver Jr2, Leslie Ann Young1, Catherine Olkin1, Kimberly Ennico Smith3, Jeffrey M Moore4, John R Spencer1, William B McKinnon5, William M Grundy6, Dale P Cruikshank4, Fran Bagenal7, Randy Gladstone8, Michael E Summers9 and The NASA New Horizons Science Team, (1)Southwest Research Institute Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Laurel, MD, United States, (3)NASA Ames, Moffet Field, CA, United States, (4)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, United States, (5)Washington University in St Louis, St. Louis, MO, United States, (6)Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ, United States, (7)University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (8)Southwest Research Inst, San Antonio, TX, United States, (9)Geo Mason-Physics & Astronomy, Fairfax, VA, United States
Abstract:
Pluto and its satellites were explored by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, with closest approach to Pluto on 14 July 2015. Pluto’s surface is found to be remarkably diverse in terms of its range of landforms, terrain ages, and albedo, color, and composition gradients. Strong evidence was found for geologically young surface units, a water-ice crust, ice convection, and glacial flow. Pluto’s wide range of surface expressions and long term activity raise fundamental questions about how small planets can have active processes billions of years after their formation. Pluto’s atmosphere was found to be more extended than anticipated, to have an extensive global haze layer, several new trace species, and a low surface pressure of ~10 microbars. Pluto’s large satellite Charon’s surface geology is also diverse, displaying tectonics and evidence for a heterogeneous crustal composition; Charon's north pole displays puzzling dark terrain; no evidence for a Charon atmosphere has been found. Sizes and reflectivities for all four of Pluto's small satellites will be reported. Despite much improved diameter limits, no new satellites of Pluto were detected by New Horizons. In this review talk I will summarize these and other findings about the Pluto system.
