P51A-2042
Understanding Pluto's Surface: Correlations between Geology and Composition
Friday, 18 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
John R Spencer1, Alan Stern2, Harold A Weaver Jr3, Leslie Ann Young1, Catherine Olkin1, Kimberly Ennico Smith4, Jeffrey M Moore4, William M Grundy5 and New Horizons Science Team, (1)Southwest Research Institute Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO, United States, (3)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Laurel, MD, United States, (4)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, United States, (5)Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ, United States
Abstract:
New Horizons has revealed that Pluto's surface is composed of a remarkable variety of terrains that differ strikingly in their landforms, color, and near-infrared spectral characteristics. Strong correlations are seen between the morphology revealed by high-resolution imaging from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), and the surface composition inferred from the spacecraft's color camera and near-infrared spectrometer, which are both included in the Ralph instrument. These correlations provide the potential for a much deeper understanding of the processes that have shaped Pluto's complex surface that was possible for Pluto's sibling Triton, for which Voyager did not provide compositional maps. We will discuss how the full suite of New Horizons remote sensing instruments reveal a surface modified by the interplay of insolation variations, meteorology, and endogenic processes.
