Where New Horizons is

[saturno2]

Image of Pluto´s Crescent is very interesting
and very beautiful.

[BMAONE23]

A Full View of Pluto’s Stunning Crescent
NASA | JHU APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Oct 30

[img3="Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI"]http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Scie ... -29-15.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

In September, the New Horizons team released a stunning but incomplete image of Pluto’s crescent. Thanks to new processing work by the science team, New Horizons is releasing the entire, breathtaking image of Pluto.

This image was made just 15 minutes after New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, as the spacecraft looked back at Pluto toward the sun. The wide-angle perspective of this view shows the deep haze layers of Pluto's atmosphere extending all the way around Pluto, revealing the silhouetted profiles of rugged plateaus on the night (left) side. The shadow of Pluto cast on its atmospheric hazes can also be seen at the uppermost part of the disk. On the sunlit side of Pluto (right), the smooth expanse of the informally named icy plain Sputnik Planum is flanked to the west (above, in this orientation) by rugged mountains up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) high, including the informally named Norgay Montes in the foreground and Hillary Montes on the skyline. Below (east) of Sputnik, rougher terrain is cut by apparent glaciers.

The backlighting highlights more than a dozen high-altitude layers of haze in Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere. The horizontal streaks in the sky beyond Pluto are stars, smeared out by the motion of the camera as it tracked Pluto. The image was taken with New Horizons' Multi-spectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) from a distance of 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) to Pluto. The resolution is 700 meters (0.4 miles).

Interestingly, all of the star trails are oriented left to right as should be expected given the direction of travel. Though one apparent trail, at about 12:30 - 1:00 and about 1/2 way from the limb to the edge of the image (at the edge of the atmosphere), appears to travel from top to bottom

[Ann]

I can show you the shadow.

Thanks, Geck!

Ann

[neufer]

The Youngest Crater on Charon?
NASA | JHU APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Oct 30

---

New Horizons scientists have discovered a striking contrast between one of the fresh craters on Pluto’s largest moon Charon and a neighboring crater dotting the moon’s Pluto-facing hemisphere.

"Why are these two similar-looking and similar-sized craters, so near to each other, so compositionally distinct?" asked Will Grundy, New Horizons Composition team lead from Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. "We have various ideas when it comes to the ammonia in Organa. The crater could be younger, or perhaps the impact that created it hit a pocket of ammonia-rich subsurface ice. Alternatively, maybe Organa’s impactor delivered its own ammonia."

Both craters are about the same size – roughly 5 kilometers [3 miles] in diameter – with similar appearances, including bright wisps or rays of ejected material, or ejecta. One apparent difference is that Organa has a central region of darker ejecta, though from the map created with data from New Horizons’ Ralph/LEISA instrument, it appears that the ammonia-rich material extends beyond this dark area. ...

---

<<Ammonium nitrate is a white crystalline solid and is highly soluble in water. The compound is the main component of ANFO, a popular explosive, which accounts for 80% of explosives used in North America. It is used in some instant cold packs, as hydrating the salt is an endothermic process, though it is being phased out of use in many countries due to concerns over its potential for use in improvised explosive devices and the synthesis of illicit substances.

Ammonium nitrate has also been controversially used as a cheap airbag propellant in automobile airbags, most notably by the Takata Corporation.>>

[bystander]

New Horizons Completes Record-Setting Kuiper Belt Targeting Maneuvers
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Nov 05

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has successfully performed the last in a series of four targeting maneuvers that set it on course for a January 2019 encounter with 2014 MU69. This ancient body in the Kuiper Belt is more than a billion miles beyond Pluto; New Horizons will explore it if NASA approves an extended mission.

The four propulsive maneuvers were the most distant trajectory corrections ever performed by any spacecraft. The fourth maneuver, programmed into the spacecraft's computers and executed with New Horizons' hydrazine-fueled thrusters, started at approximately 1:15 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Nov. 4, and lasted just under 20 minutes. Spacecraft operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, began receiving data through NASA's Deep Space Network just before 7 p.m. EST on Wednesday indicating the final targeting maneuver went as planned.

The maneuvers didn't speed or slow the spacecraft as much as they "pushed" New Horizons sideways, giving it a 57 meter per second (128 mile per hour) nudge toward the KBO. That's enough to make New Horizons intercept MU69 in just over three years. ...

The New Horizons team will submit a formal proposal to NASA for the extended mission to 2014 MU69 in early 2016. The science team hopes to explore even closer to MU69 than New Horizons came to Pluto on July 14, which was approximately 7,750 miles (12,500 kilometers). ...

[bystander]

Four Months after Pluto Flyby, NASA’s New Horizons Yields Wealth of Discovery
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Nov 09

At Pluto, New Horizons Finds Geology of All Ages, Possible Ice Volcanoes, Insight into Planetary Origins

An ammonia-water slurry may swirl below Pluto's icy surface
Purdue University | 2015 Nov 09

Pluto’s Moons Spinning Wildly
SETI Institute | 2015 Nov 09

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[orin stepanek]

Four Months after Pluto Flyby, NASA’s New Horizons Yields Wealth of Discovery
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Nov 09

At Pluto, New Horizons Finds Geology of All Ages, Possible Ice Volcanoes, Insight into Planetary Origins

An ammonia-water slurry may swirl below Pluto's icy surface
Purdue University | 2015 Nov 09

Pluto’s Moons Spinning Wildly
SETI Institute | 2015 Nov 09

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Nice!

[bystander]

A Day on Pluto, a Day on Charon
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Nov 20

[img3="On approach in July 2015, the cameras on New Horizons captured Pluto rotating over the course of a full “Pluto day.” The best available images of each side of Pluto taken during approach have been combined to create this view of a full rotation."]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... -day_1.jpg[/img3][img3="On approach to the Pluto system in July 2015, the cameras on New Horizons captured images of the largest of Pluto’s five moons, Charon, rotating over the course of a full day. The best currently available images of each side of Charon taken during approach have been combined to create this view of a full rotation of the moon."]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... -day_1.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

On approach in July 2015, the cameras on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured Pluto rotating over the course of a full “Pluto day.” The best available images of each side of Pluto taken during approach have been combined to create this view of a full rotation.

Pluto’s day is 6.4 Earth days long. The images were taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) and the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera as the distance between New Horizons and Pluto decreased from 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) on July 7 to 400,000 miles (about 645,000 kilometers) on July 13. The more distant images contribute to the view at the 3 o’clock position, with the top of the heart-shaped, informally named Tombaugh Regio slipping out of view, giving way to the side of Pluto that was facing away from New Horizons during closest approach on July 14. The side New Horizons saw in most detail – what the mission team calls the “encounter hemisphere” – is at the 6 o’clock position.

These images and others like them reveal many details about Pluto, including the differences between the encounter hemisphere and the so-called “far side” hemisphere seen only at lower resolution. Dimples in the bottom (south) edge of Pluto’s disk are artifacts of the way the images were combined to create these composites.

Charon – like Pluto – rotates once every 6.4 Earth days. The photos were taken by LORRI and Ralph/MVIC from July 7-13, as New Horizons closed in over a range of 6.4 million miles (10.2 million kilometers). The more distant images contribute to the view at the 9 o’clock position, with few of the signature surface features visible, such as the cratered uplands, canyons, or rolling plains of the informally named Vulcan Planum. The side New Horizons saw in most detail, during closest approach on July 14, 2015, is at the 12 o’clock position.

These images and others like them reveal many details about Charon, including how similar looking the encounter hemisphere is to the so-called “far side” hemisphere seen only at low resolution – which is the opposite of the situation at Pluto. Dimples in the bottom (south) edge of Charon’s disk are artifacts of the way the New Horizons images were combined to create these composites.

Image Credits: NASA/JHU-APL/SwRI

[neufer]

[b][color=#0000FF][size=150]Will Beauty/Persephone/Charon ever get to know the heart that lie behind the ugly facade of Pluto?[/size][/color][/b]

---

<<Beast allows Beauty to go see her family on the condition that she returns exactly a week later. Beauty agrees to this and sets off for home with an enchanted mirror and ring. The mirror allows her to see what is going on back at the Beast's castle, and the ring allows her to return to the castle in an instant when turned three times around her finger. Her older sisters are surprised to find her well fed and dressed in finery. They are envious when they hear of her happy life at the castle, and, hearing that she must return to the Beast on a certain day, beg her to stay. They hope that the Beast will be angry with Beauty for breaking her promise and eat her alive. Beauty's heart is moved by her sisters' false show of love, and she agrees to stay.

When Beauty begins to feel guilty about breaking her promise to the Beast she uses the mirror to see him back at the castle. She is horrified to discover that the Beast is lying half-dead from heartbreak near the rose bushes her father had stolen from and she immediately uses the ring to return to the Beast. Beauty weeps over the Beast, saying that she loves him. When her tears strike him, the Beast is transformed into the handsome prince from Beauty's dreams. The Prince informs her that long ago a fairy turned him into a hideous beast after he refused to let her in from the rain, and that only by finding true love, despite his ugliness, could the curse be broken.>>

[bystander]

New Horizons Returns the First of Its Very Best Images of Pluto
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Dec 04

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has sent back the first in a series of the sharpest views of Pluto it obtained during its July flyby – and the best close-ups of Pluto that humans may see for decades.

Each week the piano-sized New Horizons spacecraft transmits data stored on its digital recorders from its flight through the Pluto system on July 14. These latest pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto, with resolutions of about 250-280 feet (77-85 meters) per pixel – revealing features less than half the size of a city block on Pluto’s diverse surface. In these new images, New Horizons captured a wide variety of cratered, mountainous and glacial terrains.

“These close-up images, showing the diversity of terrain on Pluto, demonstrate the power of our robotic planetary explorers to return intriguing data to scientists back here on planet Earth,” said John Grunsfeld, former astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “New Horizons thrilled us during the July flyby with the first close images of Pluto, and as the spacecraft transmits the treasure trove of images in its onboard memory back to us, we continue to be amazed by what we see."

These latest images form a strip 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide on a world 3 billion miles away. The pictures trend from Pluto’s jagged horizon about 500 miles (800 kilometers) northwest of the informally named Sputnik Planum, across the al-Idrisi mountains, over the shoreline of Sputnik, and across its icy plains. (To view the strip in the highest resolution possible, click here and zoom in.)

[orin stepanek]

Don't know if this will work but here goes!

https://youtu.be/B0xkupKwjfM

[bystander]

Zooming in on Pluto’s Pattern of Pits
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Dec 10

[img3="Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI"]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... -10-15.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

On July 14 the telescopic camera on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft took the highest resolution images ever obtained of the intricate pattern of “pits” across a section of Pluto’s prominent heart-shaped region, informally named Tombaugh Regio. Mission scientists believe these mysterious indentations may form through a combination of ice fracturing and evaporation. The scarcity of overlying impact craters in this area also leads scientists to conclude that these pits – typically hundreds of yards across and tens of yards deep – formed relatively recently. Their alignment provides clues about the ice flow and the exchange of nitrogen and other volatile materials between the surface and the atmosphere.

The image is part of a sequence taken by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) as the spacecraft passed within 9,550 miles (15,400 kilometers) of Pluto’s surface, just 13 minutes before the time of closest approach. The small box on the global view shows the section of the region imaged in the southeast corner of the giant ice sheet informally named Sputnik Planum. The magnified view is 50-by-50 miles (80-by-80 kilometers) across. The large ring-like structure near the bottom right of the magnified view -- and the smaller one near the bottom left -- may be remnant craters. The upper-left quadrant of the image shows the border between the relatively smooth Sputnik Planum ice sheet and the pitted area, with a series of hills forming slightly inside this unusual “shoreline.”

[bystander]

Pluto’s Close-up, Now in Color
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Dec 10

[img3="Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI"]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... k=gom-qT_Z[/img3][hr][/hr]

This enhanced color mosaic combines some of the sharpest views of Pluto that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft obtained during its July 14 flyby. The pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto, with resolutions of about 250-280 feet (77-85 meters) per pixel – revealing features smaller than half a city block on Pluto’s surface. Lower resolution color data (at about 2,066 feet, or 630 meters, per pixel) were added to create this new image.

The images form a strip 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide, trending (top to bottom) from the edge of “badlands” northwest of the informally named Sputnik Planum, across the al-Idrisi mountains, onto the shoreline of Pluto’s “heart” feature, and just into its icy plains. They combine pictures from the telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) taken approximately 15 minutes before New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto, with – from a range of only 10,000 miles (17,000 kilometers) – with color data (in near-infrared, red and blue) gathered by the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) 25 minutes before the LORRI pictures.

The wide variety of cratered, mountainous and glacial terrains seen here gives scientists and the public alike a breathtaking, super-high-resolution color window into Pluto’s geology.

[bystander]

New Findings from New Horizons Shape Understanding of Pluto and its Moons
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2015 Dec 17

[c][attachment=0]p_leisa_hires_crop_0.jpg[/attachment][/c][hr][/hr]

Five months after NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto to take the first images and measurements of this icy world and its system of satellites, knowledge about this distant system continues to unfold.

New Horizons science team members are highlighting the latest findings from the Pluto flyby at this week’s American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting in San Francisco. Among the highlights are insights into Pluto’s geology and composition, as well as new details about the unexpected haze in Pluto’s atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind.

“We’re much less than halfway through transmitting data about the Pluto system to Earth, but a wide variety of new scientific results are already emerging,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Geological evidence has been found for widespread past and present glacial activity, including the formation of networks of eroded valleys, some of which are “hanging valleys,” much like those in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. “Pluto has greatly exceeded our expectations in diversity of landforms and processes — processes that continue to the present,” said Alan Howard of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, a scientific collaborator with the New Horizons’ Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team.

Key to understanding activity on Pluto is the role of the deep layer of solid nitrogen and other volatile ices that fill the left side of Pluto’s ‘heart’—a vast, 620-mile (1,000-kilometer) -wide basin, informally named Sputnik Planum. New numerical models of thermal convection within this ice layer not only explain the numerous polygonal ice features seen on Sputnik Planum’s surface, but indicate this layer may be up to a few miles thick. Evaporation of this nitrogen and condensation on higher surrounding terrain leads to glacial flow back toward the basin; additional numerical models of nitrogen ice flow show how Pluto’s landscape has been and is still being transformed. ...

[orin stepanek]

New Horizons is already over 1 1/2 AU past Pluto's orbit!
Ever wonder what caused what looks like trails on Pluto's surface? Could it be from extreme weather on the planet? Just wondering!

[bystander]

Pluto’s Widespread Water Ice
NASA | JHU APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2016 Jan 29

[img3="Credit: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI, Ralph/LEISA"]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... er-ice.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

Data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft point to more prevalent water ice on Pluto’s surface than previously thought.

This false-color image, derived from observations in infrared light by the Ralph/Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) instrument, shows where the spectral features of water ice are abundant on Pluto’s surface. It is based on two LEISA scans of Pluto obtained on July 14, 2015, from a range of about 67,000 miles (108,000 kilometers).

The scans, taken about 15 minutes apart, were stitched into a combined multispectral Pluto “data cube” covering the full hemisphere visible to New Horizons as it flew past Pluto. A data cube like this is a three-dimensional array in which an image of Pluto is formed at each LEISA-sensitive wavelength.

Water ice is Pluto's crustal "bedrock,” the canvas on which its more volatile ices paint their seasonally changing patterns. Initial New Horizons maps of Pluto's water ice bedrock compared LEISA spectra with a pure water ice template spectrum, resulting in the map at left.

A disadvantage of that technique is that water ice's spectral signature is easily masked by methane ice, so that map was only sensitive to areas that were especially rich in water ice and/or depleted in methane. The much more sensitive method used on the right involves modeling the contributions of Pluto's various ices all together. This method, too, has limitations in that it can only map ices included in the model, but the team is continually adding more data and improving the model.

The new map shows exposed water ice to be considerably more widespread across Pluto's surface than was previously known — an important discovery. But despite its much greater sensitivity, the map still shows little or no water ice in the informally named places called Sputnik Planum (the left or western region of Pluto’s “heart”) and Lowell Regio (far north on the encounter hemisphere). This indicates that at least in these regions, Pluto's icy bedrock is well hidden beneath a thick blanket of other ices such as methane, nitrogen and carbon monoxide.

[bystander]

Pluto's Blue Atmosphere in the Infrared
NASA | JHU APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2016 Jan 29

[img3="Credit: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI, Ralph/LEISA"]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... frared.png[/img3][hr][/hr]

This image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is the first look at Pluto’s atmosphere in infrared wavelengths, and the first image of the atmosphere made with data from the New Horizons Ralph/Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) instrument.

In this image, sunlight is coming from above and behind Pluto. The image was captured on July 14, 2015, while New Horizons was about 112,000 miles (180,000 kilometers) away. The image covers LEISA’s full spectral range (1.25 to 2.5 microns), which is divided into thirds, with the shortest third being put into the blue channel, middle third into the green channel, and longest into the red channel. North in this image is around the 10 o’clock position.

The blue ring around Pluto is caused by sunlight scattering from haze particles common in Pluto's atmosphere; scientists believe the haze is a photochemical smog resulting from the action of sunlight on methane and other molecules, producing a complex mixture of hydrocarbons such as acetylene and ethylene. These hydrocarbons accumulate into small particles – a fraction of a micrometer in size – which scatter sunlight to make the blue haze. The new infrared image, when combined with earlier images made at shorter, visible wavelengths, gives scientists new clues into the size distribution of the particles.

The whitish patches around Pluto’s limb in this image are sunlight bouncing off more reflective or smoother areas on Pluto's surface – with the largest patch being the western section of the informally named Cthulhu Regio. Future LEISA observations returned to Earth should capture the remainder of the haze, missing from the lower section of the image.

[bystander]

Pluto’s Mysterious, Floating Hills
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2016 Feb 04

[img3="Hills of water ice on Pluto ‘float’ in a sea of frozen nitrogen and move over time like icebergs in Earth’s Arctic Ocean—another example of Pluto’s fascinating geological activity. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI, Ralph/MVIC"]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... k=Ett1h5ne[/img3][hr][/hr]

The nitrogen ice glaciers on Pluto appear to carry an intriguing cargo: numerous, isolated hills that may be fragments of water ice from Pluto’s surrounding uplands. These hills individually measure one to several miles or kilometers across, according to images and data from NASA’s New Horizons mission.

The hills, which are in the vast ice plain informally named Sputnik Planum within Pluto’s ‘heart,’ are likely miniature versions of the larger, jumbled mountains on Sputnik Planum’s western border. They are yet another example of Pluto’s fascinating and abundant geological activity.

Because water ice is less dense than nitrogen-dominated ice, scientists believe these water ice hills are floating in a sea of frozen nitrogen and move over time like icebergs in Earth’s Arctic Ocean. The hills are likely fragments of the rugged uplands that have broken away and are being carried by the nitrogen glaciers into Sputnik Planum. ‘Chains’ of the drifting hills are formed along the flow paths of the glaciers. When the hills enter the cellular terrain of central Sputnik Planum, they become subject to the convective motions of the nitrogen ice, and are pushed to the edges of the cells, where the hills cluster in groups reaching up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) across.

At the northern end of the image, the feature informally named Challenger Colles – honoring the crew of the lost space shuttle Challenger – appears to be an especially large accumulation of these hills, measuring 37 by 22 miles (60 by 35 kilometers). This feature is located near the boundary with the uplands, away from the cellular terrain, and may represent a location where hills have been ‘beached’ due to the nitrogen ice being especially shallow.

The image above shows the inset in context next to a larger view that covers most of Pluto’s encounter hemisphere. The inset was obtained by New Horizons’ Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) instrument. North is up; illumination is from the top-left of the image. The image resolution is about 1050 feet (320 meters) per pixel. The image measures a little over 300 miles (almost 500 kilometers) long and about 210 miles (340 kilometers) wide. It was obtained at a range of approximately 9,950 miles (16,000 kilometers) from Pluto, about 12 minutes before New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015.

[orin stepanek]

Pluto in a minute!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newho ... index.html

[bystander]

Pluto in a minute!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newho ... index.html

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... FEPS5yONT2

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

[orin stepanek]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Images/index.php


Putting Pluto’s Geology on the Map
This geological map covers a portion of Pluto’s surface that measures 1,290 miles (2,070 kilometers) from top to bottom, and includes the vast nitrogen-ice plain informally named Sputnik Planum and surrounding terrain.

Read more »

[bystander]

Pluto’s ‘Hulk-like’ Moon Charon: A Possible Ancient Ocean?
NASA | JHU APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2016 Feb 18

Pluto’s largest moon may have gotten too big for its own skin.

[img3="A close-up of the canyons on Charon, Pluto's big moon, taken by New Horizons during its close approach to the Pluto system last July. Multiple views taken by New Horizons as it passed by Charon allow stereo measurements of topography, shown in the color-coded version of the image. The scale bar indicates relative elevation.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI"]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... melded.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

Images from NASA’s New Horizons mission suggest that Charon once had a subsurface ocean that has long since frozen and expanded, pushing out on the moon’s surface and causing it to stretch and fracture on a massive scale.

The side of Charon viewed by the passing New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015 is characterized by a system of “pull apart” tectonic faults, which are expressed as ridges, scarps and valleys—the latter sometimes reaching more than 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) deep. Charon’s tectonic landscape shows that, somehow, the moon expanded in its past, and –like Bruce Banner tearing his shirt as he becomes the Incredible Hulk – Charon’s surface fractured as it stretched.

Charon’s outer layer is primarily water ice. When the moon was young this layer was warmed by the decay of radioactive elements, as well as Charon’s own internal heat of formation. Scientists say Charon could have been warm enough to cause the water ice to melt deep down, creating a subsurface ocean. But as Charon cooled over time, this ocean would have frozen and expanded (as happens when water freezes), pushing the surface outward and producing the massive chasms we see today. ...

[orin stepanek]

Methane snow! http://www.nasa.gov/feature/methane-sno ... to-s-peaks

[BMAONE23]

This image of haze layers above Pluto's limb was taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. About 20 haze layers are seen; the layers have been found to typically extend horizontally over hundreds of kilometers, but are not strictly parallel to the surface

Click to view full size image

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Scie ... age_id=423

Look closely at the Layered atmosphere of Pluto and it really resembles the Rings of Saturn. The layers seem to spiral out from the surface. even the last visible layer appears to terminate above the arrow indicating where the first layer begins. Could Pluto's rotational speed be sufficient to "throw Off" it's tenuous atmosphere and cause the apparent "Shelling Effect"

[bystander]

Pluto Reveals More Secrets
SETI Institute | 2016 Mar 17

Eight months after its encounter with the New Horizons spacecraft, Pluto continues to surprise the scientists who study this distant world. ...

A March 18 special issue of Science features articles on the continuing analysis of Pluto and its satellites. With roughly half of the New Horizons data returned to Earth so far, scientists anticipate more discoveries and a deeper understanding of this dwarf planet system.