The Pluto system: Initial results from its exploration by New Horizons

Stern, S. A.; Bagenal, F.; Ennico, Kimberly; Gladstone, G. Randall; Grundy, W. M.; McKinnon, William B.; Moore, Jeffrey M.; Olkin, C. B.; Spencer, J. R.; Weaver, Harold A.; Young, L. A.; Andert, T.; Andrews, John P.; Banks, M. E.; Bauer, Brian; Bauman, J.; Barnouin, Olivier S.; Bedini, Peter D.; Beißer, K.; Beyer, R. A.; Bhaskaran, Shyam; Binzel, Richard P.; Birath, Emma; Bird, M. K.; Bogan, Denis J.; Bowman, Alice; Bray, V. J.; Brozović, M.; Bryan, Chris; Buckley, Merry; Buie, M. W.; Buratti, B. J.; Bushman, Stewart S.; Calloway, A.; Carcich, B.; Cheng, A. F.; Conard, Steven J.; Conrad, Cindy; Cook, J. C.; Cruikshank, D. P.; Custodio, O. S.; Ore, Cristina M. Dalle; DeBoy, Christopher C.; Dischner, Zach; Dumont, Phillip J.; Earle, A. M.; Elliott, H. A.; Ercol, Jack; Ernst, C. M.; Finley, Tiffany J.; Flanigan, Sarah H.; Fountain, Glen H.; Freeze, M. J.; Greathouse, Thomas; Green, J. L.; Guo, Yanping; Hahn, M.; Hamilton, D. P.; Hamilton, Sarah A.; Hanley, J.; Harch, A.; Hart, H. M.; Hersman, Chris; Hill, Adrian A.; Hill, M. E.; Hinson, D. P.; Holdridge, Mark E.; Horányi, M.; Howard, A. D.; Howett, C. J. A.; Jackman, Coralie D.; Jacobson, R. A.; Jennings, Donald E.; Kammer, Joshua A.; Kang, H. K.; Kaufmann, D. E.; Kollmann, P.; Krimigis, S. M.; Kusnierkiewicz, David Y.; Lauer, Tod R.; Lee, J. E.; Lindstrom, K. L.; Linscott, I. R.; Lisse, C. M.; Lunsford, Allen; Mallder, Valerie; Martin, N.; McComas, D. J.; McNutt, R. L.; Mehoke, Douglas S.; Mehoke, Thomas; Melin, Eric; Mutchler, Max; Nelson, Derek; Nimmo, F.; Núñez, Jorge; Ocampo, A.; Owen, W. M.; Paëtzold, M.; Page, Brian R.; Parker, A. H.; Parker, J. Wm.; Pelletier, Frédéric; Peterson, J. E.; Pinkine, Nick; Piquette, M.; Porter, S. B.; Protopapa, S.; Redfern, J.; Reitsema, H. J.; Reuter, Dennis C.; Roberts, J. H.; Robbins, S. J.; Rogers, Gabe; Rose, Debi; Runyon, K. D.; Retherford, Kurt D.; Ryschkewitsch, M. G.; Schenk, P.; Schindhelm, Eric; Sepan, B.; Showalter, M. R.; Singer, K. N.; Soluri, M.; Stanbridge, Dale; Steffl, A. J.; Strobel, D. F.; Stryk, T.; Summers, M. E.; Szalay, J. R.; Tapley, Mark B.; Taylor, Anthony H.; Taylor, H. W.; Throop, H. B.; Tsang, C. C. C.; Tyler, G. L.; Umurhan, O. M.; Verbiscer, A.; Versteeg, M. H.; Vincent, Michael A.; Webbert, R. W.; Weidner, S.; Weigle, Gerald; White, O. L.; Whittenburg, Karl; Williams, Bobby G.; Williams, Kenneth E.; Williams, Stephen; Woods, W. W.; Zangari, A. M.; Zirnstein, E. J.

doi:10.1126/science.aad1815

Cited by 455 publications

(339 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The New Horizons flyby of the Pluto-Charon system recently revealed evidence for diverse geologic activity on the surface of Pluto (Stern et al 2015). Moore et al (2016) find that while much of the geologic activity seems to involve volatile ices such as nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane (McKinnon et al 2016), there is also evidence for geologic activity in Pluto's water ice bedrock.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, with a radius R = 1187 km (Stern et al 2015), and a bulk density ofρ = 1.86 g/cm 3 (Stern et al 2015), suggesting a mixed ice-rock composition (McKinnon et al 1997(McKinnon et al , 2008. The New Horizons flyby of the Pluto-Charon system recently revealed evidence for diverse geologic activity on the surface of Pluto (Stern et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Recent tectonic activity on Pluto driven by phase changes in the ice shell

Hammond

Barr

Parmentier

2016

Geophysical Research Letters

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The New Horizons spacecraft has found evidence for geologic activity on the surface of Pluto, including extensional tectonic deformation of its water ice bedrock see Moore et al. (2016). One mechanism that could drive extensional tectonic activity is global surface expansion due to the partial freezing of an ocean. We use updated physical properties for Pluto and simulate its thermal evolution to understand the survival of a possible subsurface ocean. For thermal conductivities of rock less than 3 W m−1 K−1, an ocean forms and at least partially freezes, leading to recent extensional stresses in the ice shell. In scenarios where the ocean freezes and the ice shell is thicker than 260 km, ice II forms and causes global volume contraction. Since there is no evidence for recent compressional tectonic features, we argue that ice II has not formed and that Pluto's ocean has likely survived to present day.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent tectonic activity on Pluto driven by phase changes in the ice shell

Hammond

Barr

Parmentier

2016

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…The event was described in the poster on public dissemination of space mission profiles by Bock et al [9]. Some initial results from the New Horizons mission are given by Stern et al [57]. The visualizations have also been used in several post flyby events showing the incremental update of our knowledge about this object to the general public.…”

Section: Visualizing Acquisition On Plutomentioning

confidence: 99%

Globe Browsing: Contextualized Spatio-Temporal Planetary Surface Visualization

Bladin

Axelsson

Broberg

et al. 2018

IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graphics

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Abstract-Results of planetary mapping are often shared openly for use in scientific research and mission planning. In its raw format, however, the data is not accessible to non-experts due to the difficulty in grasping the context and the intricate acquisition process. We present work on tailoring and integration of multiple data processing and visualization methods to interactively contextualize geospatial surface data of celestial bodies for use in science communication. As our approach handles dynamic data sources, streamed from online repositories, we are significantly shortening the time between discovery and dissemination of data and results. We describe the image acquisition pipeline, the pre-processing steps to derive a 2.5D terrain, and a chunked level-of-detail, out-of-core rendering approach to enable interactive exploration of global maps and high-resolution digital terrain models. The results are demonstrated for three different celestial bodies. The first case addresses high-resolution map data on the surface of Mars. A second case is showing dynamic processes, such as concurrent weather conditions on Earth that require temporal datasets. As a final example we use data from the New Horizons spacecraft which acquired images during a single flyby of Pluto. We visualize the acquisition process as well as the resulting surface data. Our work has been implemented in the OpenSpace software [8], which enables interactive presentations in a range of environments such as immersive dome theaters, interactive touch tables, and virtual reality headsets.

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“…Arguably, it is a minor point, but it is not an isolated case. Contrary to Klee, Pluto has not one, but five moons: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra (e.g., Stern et al 2015). On page 380, Klee seems to conflate the red giant branch (RGB) stage and the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stage of stellar evolution; these are two separate phases of stellar evolution and cannot be used interchangeably.…”

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confidence: 99%

The reports of expunction are grossly exaggerated: a reply to Robert Klee

Ćirković

2018

International Journal of Astrobiology

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Recent paper by Robert Klee in this journal argues that we should endorse a form of cosmic pessimism due to the inevitable destruction of Earth and humanity, allegedly meaning the complete and total annihilation of all traces of humanity's existence ('human expunction'). It could be shown that both the physical basis and philosophical methodology used by Klee to reach those bleak conclusions are at best premature and at worst unwarranted and misleading. Even worse, they reflect a mindset of unjustified and narrow-minded technological and societal pessimism, which contributes to the erosion of the Enlightenment values, the loss of public interest in space research and colonization, and could indeed increase vulnerability to real -as opposed to uncertain eschatological -global risks humanity is facing in this millennium.In a recent paper in this Journal, the philosopher Klee (2017) attempts to argue that we are facing inevitable and complete doom (or 'expunction') as entailed by the laws of physics and that we should embrace such a conclusion and draw philosophical and moral consequences from it. He outlines the results of physical eschatology, which allegedly indicate such necessary expunction and offers a bleak and ultra-pessimistic view of the survival of future human descendants and traces of the human culture. If that were indeed the case, the topic would certainly have deserved lots of considerations; however, Klee's claims are at best weak and at worst outright wrong and misguiding.In particular, I wish to argue for the following four theses, which roughly correspond to major parts of Klee's narrative and are diametrically opposite to his claims:(1) Future news about the evolution of physical universe are not at all that bad.(1) There is no reason to doubt the feasibility of both interplanetary, interstellar and even intergalactic flight. (2) There is no rational reason to doubt the capacity of intelligent observers to change their physical environment on a large scale. (3) The biggest threat to the feasibility of such grand feats and indeed the future of humanity comes, at present, from undue pessimism and closed-minded focus on the local and limited, as contrasted with the cosmic vision of (post)humanity.

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The Pluto system: Initial results from its exploration by New Horizons

Cited by 455 publications

References 32 publications

Recent tectonic activity on Pluto driven by phase changes in the ice shell

Recent tectonic activity on Pluto driven by phase changes in the ice shell

Globe Browsing: Contextualized Spatio-Temporal Planetary Surface Visualization

The reports of expunction are grossly exaggerated: a reply to Robert Klee

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