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posted by martyb on Friday May 25 2018, @01:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the Gee-Mickey...-is-THAT-what-I'm-made-of? dept.

Pluto May Not Be a Planet, But It Could Be Made Out of Millions of Comets

Pluto may not be categorised as a planet any more, but it still holds plenty of fascination. For instance, how did the dwarf planet form, and why is it so different from the planets? By examining its chemical composition, researchers have come up with a new idea: Pluto is made of comets.

According to the currently accepted model, planets are formed by the gradual accretion of smaller objects - and Pluto, situated right next to the Kuiper Belt asteroid field, has long been thought to have formed the same way. So that part is nothing new.

But there are similarities between Pluto and Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko that scientists from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) believe may not be coincidental. In particular, the nitrogen-rich ice in Pluto's Sputnik Planitia.

[...] "We found an intriguing consistency between the estimated amount of nitrogen inside the glacier and the amount that would be expected if Pluto was formed by the agglomeration of roughly a billion comets or other Kuiper Belt objects similar in chemical composition to 67P, the comet explored by Rosetta."

Also at SwRI.

Primordial N2 provides a cosmochemical explanation for the existence of Sputnik Planitia, Pluto (DOI unknown, Journal Icarus) (arXiv)


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 25 2018, @02:42PM (4 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 25 2018, @02:42PM (#684030) Journal

    Pluto is made of comets, that much I got it already.
    Now, question is... what made up the comets?

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  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 25 2018, @03:33PM

    by RS3 (6367) on Friday May 25 2018, @03:33PM (#684053)

    Comet molecules?

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 25 2018, @05:14PM (2 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday May 25 2018, @05:14PM (#684087)

    It's comets all the way down, man!
    Just find some manga about snowball fights, there's bound to be one, and the hero will definitely power-up to throwing snowballs with perfect double-comet tails, while his opponent rages up and counters with millions of micro-comets, and the best friend clumsily attacks with giant ancient comets...

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @06:21PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @06:21PM (#684123)

      This model of pluto's formation is also consistent with the data.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Friday May 25 2018, @06:25PM

      by Freeman (732) on Friday May 25 2018, @06:25PM (#684127) Journal

      I've seen worse plot lines.

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      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"