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The 2015 New Horizons flyby has produced the first high-resolution maps of morphology and topography of Pluto and Charon, the most distant objects so mapped. Global integrated mosaics of Pluto were produced using both LORRI framing camera and MVIC line scan camera data, showing the best resolution data obtained for all areas of the illuminated surface, ∼78% of the body. A unique feature of the Pluto...
Bladed Terrain on Pluto consists of deposits of massive CH4, which are observed to occur within latitudes 30° of the equator and are found almost exclusively at the highest elevations (> 2 km above the mean radius). Our analysis indicates that these deposits of CH4 preferentially precipitate at low latitudes where net annual solar energy input is lowest. CH4 and N2 will both precipitate at low...
The highlands region north and east of Sputnik Planitia can be subdivided into seven terrain types based on their physiographic expression. The northern rough uplands are characterized by jagged uplands and broad troughs, and it may contain a deeply-eroded ancient mantle. Dissected terrain has been interpreted to have been eroded by paleo-glaciation. The smooth uplands and pits terrain contains broad,...
Relating relaxation of impact crater topography to past heat flow through the crusts of icy satellites is a technique that has been applied to satellites around Jupiter and Saturn. We use global digital elevation models of the surfaces of Dione and Tethys generated from Cassini data to obtain crater depth/diameter (d/D) data. Relaxation is found to affect craters down to smaller diameters on these...
Fields of pits, both large and small, in Tombaugh Regio (Sputnik Planitia, and the Pitted Uplands to the east), and along the scarp of Piri Rupes, are examples of landscapes on Pluto where we conclude that sublimation drives their formation and evolution. Our heuristic modeling closely mimics the form, spacing, and arrangement of a variety of Tombaugh Regio's pits. Pluto's sublimation modified landforms...
Modern N2 ice glaciers flow from highlands to the east of the 750×1400km2 lowland of Sputnik Planum [SP] and merge with the ices of similar composition on SP. We explore the possibility that glaciation may be fed by N2 sublimation from SP followed by redeposition on the highlands. The uplands to the northeast, north, and west of SP have been erosionally sculpted into a variety of dissected terrains...
NASA's New Horizons flyby mission of the Pluto-Charon binary system and its four moons provided humanity with its first spacecraft-based look at a large Kuiper Belt Object beyond Triton. Excluding this system, multiple Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) have been observed for only 20 years from Earth, and the KBO size distribution is unconstrained except among the largest objects. Because small KBOs will...
The geology and stratigraphy of the feature on Pluto informally named Sputnik Planitia is documented through geologic mapping at 1:2,000,000 scale. All units that have been mapped are presently being affected to some degree by the action of flowing N2 ice. The N2 ice plains of Sputnik Planitia display no impact craters, and are undergoing constant resurfacing via convection, glacial flow and sublimation...
While Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System, the largest mountains seen on Io are created by tectonic forces rather than volcanic construction. Pervasive compression, primarily brought about by subsidence induced by sustained volcanic resurfacing, creates the mountains, but at the same time inhibits magma ascent in vertical conduits (dikes). We superpose stress...
The goal of this project is to study the properties of H2O ice in the environment of the Saturn satellites and in particular to measure the relative amounts of crystalline and amorphous H2O ice in and around two craters on Rhea. The craters are remnants of cataclysmic events that, by raising the local temperature, melted the ice, which subsequently crystallized. Based on laboratory experiments it...
Evidence for relaxation of impact crater topography has been observed on many icy satellites, including those of Saturn, and the magnitude of relaxation can be related to past heat flow (e.g. Moore, J.M., Schenk, P.M., Bruesch, L.S., Asphaug, E., McKinnon, W.B. [2004]. Icarus 171, 421–443; Dombard, A.J., McKinnon, W.B. [2006]. J. Geophys. Res. 111, E01001. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2005JE002445)....
The unique appearance of Hyperion can be explained in part by the loss to space of ballistic ejecta during impact events, as was proposed by Thomas et al. (Thomas, P.C. et al. [2007a]. Icarus 190, 573–584). We conclude that such loss is a partial explanation, accounting for the lack of appreciable intercrater plains on a saturation-cratered surface. In order to create the smooth surfaces and the reticulate,...
The MARSIS radar experiment aboard the ESA Mars Express satellite has recorded several unusual reflections in the Ma'adim Vallis region of Mars. These reflections display a wide variety of morphologies which are very different from those of reflections seen beneath the Polar Layered Deposits, Medusae Fossae Formation and Dorsa Argentea Formation. Their morphologies are sometimes very laterally extensive,...
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