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from the this-is-about-the-80's-band-right? dept.
A giant asteroid impact in the dwarf planet's past offers new insights into the possibility of an ocean beneath its surface.
Ever since NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto last year, evidence has been mounting that the dwarf planet may have a liquid ocean beneath its icy shell. Now, by modeling the impact dynamics that created a massive crater on Pluto's surface, a team of researchers has made a new estimate of how thick that liquid layer might be.
The study, led by Brown University geologist Brandon Johnson and published in Geophysical Research Letters, finds a high likelihood that there's more than 100 kilometers of liquid water beneath Pluto's surface. The research also offers a clue about the composition of that ocean, suggesting that it likely has a salt content similar to that of the Dead Sea.
Europa, Mars, Enceladus, Titan, and now...Pluto? Scientists who search for extra-terrestrial life focus on the presence of liquid water (or hydrocarbons, in the case of Titan), so the list of potential sites in the solar system is growing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Monday September 26 2016, @05:11PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @06:58PM
It would be worth it, for the CEO giving the keynote address to take a sip from water brought back from Pluto.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday September 26 2016, @08:51PM
Fools! Seduced by a promiscuous gravity well? Fixated on "liquid" water? Do you not realize that if you start mining water from a dwarf planet like Pluto, it will become less massive? If that happens, its orbit will shift further away from Sol, perhaps causing a perturbation in the orbit of Planet X, or Nibiru, that would send it careening into the central solar system where undoubtedly it would of course collide with Earth. All this, for cheap water? What are you, Ice Pirates? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087451/ [imdb.com]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday September 27 2016, @07:48AM
In Scotland they have eschewed fracking and are building tidal power schemes. It's a Communist plot to drop the Moon on the Land of the Free.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 28 2016, @06:46AM
Ah, the Scots!
In Scotland they have eschewed fracking and are building tidal power schemes. It's a Communist plot to drop the Moon
So, the Moon causes tides, and thus if we take energy from the tides, we are depleting the Moon? Am I reading this right? So once we harness enough tidal energy, the Moon will have to fall from the sky. Still a little unclear on the targeting procedures, though.
But was not this part of my original objection? Liquid water, on Pluto? HOW? Has got to be tidal interaction with Charon, the ferryman to the afterlife (water, you see?) generating sufficient heat. So if we remove enough water to affect that tidal inter-relation, Charon will fall into Pluto, causing Pluto to leave its orbit, perturbing the orbit of the aforementioned Nemesis Planet of Earth, and we all die. Different mechanism, same result. Why not a nice water-mining trip to Europa this summer?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @06:46PM
Too bad the probe was only able to get details of essentially roughly 40% of Pluto. The other side is mostly a blur. Who knows what other interesting features we missed.
Pluto rotates about once every six days, and the probe was traveling so fast that it was too far away when the other side was visible.
It took the probe about 10 years to get to Pluto, even though it's one of the fastest probes ever launched (assisted in speed by a Jupiter flyby). If we want to see more sides of Pluto, we either have to send a much slower probe, say one that takes 30 years to get there, or send an orbiter, which would probably also have to be relatively slow, otherwise it would be too hard/expensive to enter orbit, since you have to roughly match the velocity of the planet to enter orbit. (Or maybe use Uranus or Neptune as a "gravity break", but they'd have to be in the right place.)
Maybe send quick "mini-probes" that only do one or two jobs, such as imaging. However, you still need a big antenna and fairly hefty power source to send all that data back from that distance such that there's going to be communication "overhead" no matter what. Thus, you might as well pay a little more and pack in other instruments.
Perhaps clone New Horizons and send it to visit the other half. Using the same design should save money.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday September 26 2016, @08:45PM
> Scientists who search for extra-terrestrial life focus on the presence of liquid water
I'm pretty sure that there are lots of lifeforms out in the universe who either have no clue about that weird H2O thing, or might even be harmed by it.
There couldn't possibly be life at the bottom of the ocean, because there's no light nor air...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 27 2016, @06:31AM
There is water at the bottom of the ocean.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 27 2016, @09:36AM
"Water running under. Under rocks and stones. Water running under." Talking Heads? "Once in a Lifetime"? Is this my beautiful house?