More weird Pluto geology
Cool image time! The New Horizons science team has released an image taken during the spacecraft’s fly-by of Pluto in July 2015 showing what they are calling “fretted terrain”.
The image above is a cropped reduced section of that image. It shows the strange transition zone between the higher elevation bright areas and the lower dark plains. As they note,
New Horizons scientists haven’t seen this type of terrain anywhere else on Pluto; in fact, it’s rare terrain across the solar system – the only other well-known example of such being Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars. The distinct interconnected valley network was likely formed by extensional fracturing of Pluto’s surface. The valleys separating the blocks may then have been widened by movement of nitrogen ice glaciers, or flowing liquids, or possibly by ice sublimation at the block margins.
In other words, they really don’t know what is going on.
Cool image time! The New Horizons science team has released an image taken during the spacecraft’s fly-by of Pluto in July 2015 showing what they are calling “fretted terrain”.
The image above is a cropped reduced section of that image. It shows the strange transition zone between the higher elevation bright areas and the lower dark plains. As they note,
New Horizons scientists haven’t seen this type of terrain anywhere else on Pluto; in fact, it’s rare terrain across the solar system – the only other well-known example of such being Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars. The distinct interconnected valley network was likely formed by extensional fracturing of Pluto’s surface. The valleys separating the blocks may then have been widened by movement of nitrogen ice glaciers, or flowing liquids, or possibly by ice sublimation at the block margins.
In other words, they really don’t know what is going on.