February 5th, 2017

Disclaimer here, I'm not a scientist or chemist this subject of compounds & molecules and how they interact at differing temperatures and pressures can get quite complex so I will stick to the simple stuff which I can understand. Pluto has nitrogen (N2),  methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO) along with 2-3 mile high iceberg mountains of water (H2O) ice floating on a sea of mostly nitrogen with a toothpaste consistency.

Let's start with some basics that will help with more complex stuff later.

Jason Cook along with 10 other scientist like Alan Stern, Harold Weaver & Will Grundy recently released a significant paper about Pluto's Moons Styx, Nix and Hydra called Spectroscopy of Pluto's Small Satellites. The paper reveals they all have ammonia hydrates (the moons not the scientists :-).

Ammonia is NH3 or 3 Hydrogen atoms bonded to a nitrogen atom (plenty of both elements on Pluto). A Hydrate is a substance that contains water H2O

NH3 and H2O can combine to form NH4 and OH. That's as far as I go with the chemistry.

I just wanted you to understand what an ammonia hydrate or ammonia hydroxide is (NH3+H2O) or (NH4+OH) because it's been detected on Pluto's little moons and that's significant.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is one carbon and one oxygen atom while methane (CH4) is four hydrogen atoms bonded to one carbon.

Below is a video of Carl Sagan describing these elements from which we are made.

Molecular Nitrogen or N2 has also been identified on Pluto/Charon and/or the small moons.

This simple lesson in elements, bonds, molecules and compounds will be helpful later, for now enjoy Carl's videos.

Carl Sagan & Bishun Khare were the two scientists who combined these gasses commonly found in the universe with simulated electrical pulse lightning to develop the complex hydrocarbons we call tholins.

Tholin's are the red gunk on Pluto, the impact crater zit on Nix, the red stuff at Mordor and the red material found on comet 1994 Jr1.

Four hydrocarbons identified in Pluto's atmosphere.

Methane (CH4), acetylene (C2H2), ethylene (C2H4) and ethane (C2H6).

Back to the plot. In Oct 2016 (4 months ago) Jason Cook and others released new information describing how three of the small moons have ammonia hydrates on them. We are able to identify these elements and compounds through spectral analysis.

When gasses burn, they emit light at different energy levels and wave lengths which generate different colors. When meteors burn up in the Earth's atmosphere they emit different colors depending on the primary material from which they are constructed.

Spectral lines of absorption occur when we look at a light source that has a gas cloud between us and the light. Spectral lines of  emission occur when light bounces off a gas. This creates a band in the light spectrum like a finger print or a barcode. This spectral line barcode allows us to identify the elements within gasses with a fair degree of precision.

Electromagnetic Light Spectrum, Spectral Lines of Absorption, Spectral Lines of Emission & Spectral Lines of Absorption from our Sun

Below are a couple interesting ways of viewing the periodic table of elements.

1st- Periodic table with atomic number (# protons) weight, names and families
Pick one element (Carbon) of interest and follow it through the next six tables.

2nd - what type of cosmic event produced the particular element.

3rd - Some products produced by elements from the periodic table.

4th - Spectral lines of emission of the elements within the periodic chart.

5th - an interactive spectral chart created by Professor Jircitano.
Use your browser's back button to return here after clicking an element.

Click on the symbol of an element to see its atomic emission spectrum (if no link, no spectrum known)

Interactive table created by Alan J. Jircitano of Pennsylvania State University

 
6th - The physical state of elements at varying temperatures

Several scientists listed below used this same process of spectral analysis on the trailing hemisphere of Saturn's moons Tethys and Enceladus to identify and draw some conclusions about ammonia hydrates found on Tethys.

A 2008 paper by
A. J. Verbiscer, D. E. Peterson, M. F. Skrutskie, M. Cushing, P. Helfenstein, M. J. Nelson, J.D. Smith, J. C. Wilson,
Titled - AMMONIA HYDRATE ON TETHYS' TRAILING HEMISPHERE
Quote
Introduction: The detection of ammonia hydrate on the surface of any body in the Solar System is of particular interest because its presence enables geologic activity.

The melting temperature of ammonia hydrate at 1 bar is ~194 K (Pluto's surface temp is 30-65K and its atmospheric pressure is 100,000 times less than earth, similar to Mars.), considerably lower than that of pure water ice.

On a saturnian satellite, photolysis would deplete a 10 micro meter layer of ammonia rich ice in only 100 years, and sputtering would deplete the uppermost surface layer of any ammonia molecules on time scales of less than a million years (Saturnian moons are closer to the Sun than Pluto delivering more photons=less time to deplete NH3+H2O).

Therefore, the presence of ammonia hydrate on the surface of an icy satellite implies recent emplacement, possibly by cryovolcanic activity. Such activity has been invoked to explain the presence of ammonia hydrate on Pluto's satellite Charon.

We find that spectral models (red line in Fig. 1) which include as much as 80% by weight of ammonia hydrate (1% NH3.H2O) intimately mixed with water ice at 60 K covering 30% of the illuminated surface area fit the observed spectrum.

The spectral wave pattern in the above chart is one that is very familiar to most scientists. The double dip at around 1.5 and 2 microns is a commonly known and understood signature of water, the dip at 1.65 means the water is crystallized ice not amorphous. Ammonia creates a dip at 2.21. This wave pattern is showing NH3+H2O aka ammonia hydrate. Since it is quickly and easily disassembled by photons of light (via photolysis) it doesn't last long when on the surface of bodies and must somehow be replenished. If there is no mechanism for replenishment of NH3+H2O as in cryovolcanism or some method for convecting the material up from below then it will in very short order be taken apart by the Sun's light and there will be no NH3 on the surface.

 Another excellent paper by Jason Cook
NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY OF CHARON: POSSIBLE EVIDENCE FOR CRYOVOLCANISM ON KUIPER BELT OBJECTS
Jason C. Cook and Steven J. Desch (July 10th 2007)
Quote from page 7
At the location of Charon, then, ammonia hydrates should be destroyed on short timescales, 20 Myr (Cooper et al. 2003). Detection of any ammonia hydrates therefore demands some mechanism for replenishing them on Charon’s surface. The simplest explanation is that ammonia hydrates exist in Charon’s interior and are periodically brought up to the surface.
End quote
This paper was written 8 years prior to our arrival. Now that we've seen Charon up close we know there is no current source of cryovolcanism on Charon while this is the simplest explanation it doesn't fit the scene. Pluto shows signs of active cryovolcanism but no signs of ammonia hydrates.

This article in Nature Astronomy by Catherine B. Olkin, Kimberly Ennico & John Spencer  indicates photolysis would disassemble the ammonia hydrates in 10 Myr as does this paper. Bottom line, these dead moons should not have ammonia hydrates on them unless they are younger than 10-20 Myr or the NH3+H2O is somehow deposited externally. The small satellites of Pluto are far too small to have the internal pressure required to create cryovolcanoes or push the ammonia up from below. They don't have atmospheres but there is another option which I explain on page 69. Hydra is estimated by one paper to have a density of 0.88 g/cm3 meaning its light and porous like comet 67p (0.533 g/cm3) which does not have ammonia hydrates.

These above statements support my scenario that a recent elliptical dance took place between Pluto and Charon or they are being externally splattered with ammonia.

Ammonia has an interesting characteristic trait, it is quickly destroyed, taken apart or disassembled by the Sun's light in a process called photolysis or photodissasociation.  

In other words photons of light break down the NH3+H2O bonds, it separates the ammonia from the water ice and the hydrogen from the nitrogen.

With the amount of photon light arriving from the Sun at the Pluto system it would take less than 20 million years for the ammonia hydrates to disassociate through photolysis. The Saturn moon Tythes would only take 1 Myr since it is closer to the Sun.

This is the same process that takes place when beer is exposed to sunlight in clear bottles.
Greg Taylor: It was very common for beer bottles to be green prior to the 1930s, but scientists later discovered that sunlight caused beer to break down or “skunk,” and brown bottles do a better job at keeping more harmful UV rays out.

SC: What is skunking?
GT: Skunking is caused when UV rays interact with the alpha acids dissolved in the beer, breaking them down to a compound that reacts with the sulphur in the beer to create a new compound (3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol), which is almost identical to the actual smell that skunks spray on their predators.

The presence of ammonia means Charon's smooth southern surface could have occurred less than 20 million years ago as did the formation of the small moons.

(Update Jul 2018, Charon's entire leading hemisphere both north and south display blotchy patterns of ammonia, indicating the ammonia is not a usable age dater for the smooth southern hemisphere)

If these small moons were older than 20 million years there would be no detectable NH3+H2O (NH4+OH).

In an effort to explain why the small moon's reflectance or albedo is so bright after 4 billion years, NASA postulated micro meteorites were continually cleaning or resurfacing the moons.

Clean exterior's mean the surface is exposed to photons from the Sun and the ammonia would then be disassembled within 20 million years.


The albedo of these moons are bright because they are young and the ammonia hydrates support this concept.


They could not have formed from an accretion disk of small particles of debris 4 billion years ago during a Pluto/Charon collision. There's no mechanism for renewing the ammonia hydrates on any of the moons they are all dead geologically.


Other neighboring Plutinos are much darker than Pluto's moons, if micro meteorites were the cause of the high albedo of Pluto's satellites then those micro meteorites would perform the same function on other Plutino's.


On the other hand, if these moons were more recently knocked off Pluto/Charon into full sized moon chunks, it couldn't have been that long ago or else the ammonia hydrate would have disassociated.

That means these small moons or at least their surfaces are much, much, much younger than 4 billion years.

Another possibility is that I don't understand this information and am getting something wrong but I don't think so, it simply took me a long time to find the right scientific data to back up what I've been saying about the active geological age of Pluto and Charon.

This stuff happened recently and there is no radioactive hot core.

One reasonable explanation for all these observations is that Pluto and Charon experienced a recent (less than 1 byr) elliptical tidal flexing Neptune induced eccentric orbital dance.

Even though the small moon's display surface materials that are less than 20 million years old, the eccentric elliptical dance between Pluto and Charon would have begun further back in time say 500 to 700 million years ago but the moons could have come into existence recently by the impact at Mordor releasing Charon's pent up pressure which was created by the elliptical tidal flex energy.

When Charon popped her cork, Pluto got hit and in turn spit bits out of the pit south of Sputnik Planitia more details on page 56. 

In the abstract of Jason Cook's paper. It says
We calculate the rate at which crystalline water ice is amorphized (Lacking definite form-organization; shapeless; formless) by solar UV/visible radiation, finding that at the depths probed by H and K observations (approximately equals 350 micro meters), the e-folding time to amorphize ice is (3-5) x 10,000 years. This implies Charon’s ice crystallized from a melt, or has been heated to >90 K, during the last 100,000 years.

Hence, the Mordor impact occurred somewhere between 100,000 and 20 million years ago. Another paper I've read indicates this process of water ice migrating from a crystallized to amorphous state takes 1.5 million years. I've been saying this repeatedly finally now I have some scientific support. These moons are not 4 Gyr. Pluto and Charon did not collide. Mordor is an impact site and the presence of ammonia hydrates on the moons along with all the other observational factors go a long way toward proving recent time frames for these events. 

According to Jason Cook's paper the surface of Charon's southern hemisphere was created within the last 100,000 years. This explains why the small moons are still spinning so wildly and their poles don't align with Pluto/Charon's poles they just haven't had time to settle down as they were very recently blasted off Charon. This explains their albedos and how Hydra is spectrally closely matched to Charon and Nix to Pluto. This explains the tholin at Mordor and the multitudes of fragments lying on Charon's southern surface. I could go on but read page 56 for more details.

The one moon missing from this reported NH3 information is Kerberos.

It was too far away and too small to get a good enough read to determine whether or not there is NH3 on it.

Since Charon, Styx, Nix and Hydra have ammonia hydrate's it is very likely Kerberos contains NH3 as well.

Whether it does or doesn't is mostly insignificant.

If the moons are young as indicated by the presence of NH3+H2O then they didn't come from a 4 billion year old impact by Pluto and Charon. These moons then cannot be used as evidence for a 4 billion year old impact as Kelsi Singer indicates with the 3 and 11 craters on Hydra and Nix. If Pluto/Charon did not impact then Pluto is probably not fully differentiated (remember Callisto?).

These two planets were recently introduced by Neptune into an elliptic gravitational tidal flexing dance which could have partially differentiated the materials creating a very recent ball of warm rock which has been just warm enough to keep the fluid N2, CH4 and CO ices flowing on Pluto till present. These below two images are NASA's "proof" that the small moons are 4 billion years old indicated by 3 impacts on Hydra and 11 on NIx and a chart plotting some squares and triangles. This "proof" data, however, has been intentionally manipulated to skew the results in favor of NASA's desired outcome.

The presence of  ammonia hydrate on Styx, Nix and Hydra renders these series of 3 and 11 impacts as well as this chart irrelevant as an effective method for dating the age of these moons.

The above chart on the right has 3 diagonal lines indicating surface age.
yellow=4 byr,
blue=3 byr and
purple= 2 byr surfaces.
Hydra's 3 blue triangles fall between 2.5 billion years and about 2.75 billion years
Nix's red/pink diamonds depending on the camera used ranges from 3 to beyond 4.5 billion years.
So the range of potential ages for these moons based on NASA's chart is anywhere from 2.5 to more than 4.5 BILLION years that's a 2 billion year slop factor. Yet NASA claims this as proof the moons are 4 billion years old.

This chart to the left from a New Horizons team paper called "The Small Satellites of Pluto as Observed by New Horizons" shows the Nix impacts (pink & red diamonds) not shown in the above chart.

These impact examples don't fit as nice and neat into this 4 billion year old theory so they were left out of the black chart above which was used at the 47th LPSC conference in Texas.

The black chart above was used publicly to demonstrate how the moon's impacts placed this system's age at 4 byr but it only displayed 7 of the 19 impact data points.

It seemed interesting to me that NASA would leave out more than half of the data from their original paper so I decided to use all 19 impacts and draw the diagonal lines to see how things lined up.

My magenta line is 4 byr the blue is 3 byr and the red is 2 byr. This chart runs from 0.1 kilometer diameter craters to 1000 this is why the diagonal lines appear steeper.

Since there are more data points on this chart using the three diagonal lines renders some interesting results.

Four impacts are less than 2 billion years and 7-9 fall between 2 and 3 billion years.

My conclusion about this chart remains the same, it is an unreliable method for age dating the moons.

The LORRI camera (pink diamonds) puts some of Nix's impacts at around 2.5 billion years and MVIC puts some at less than 3 billion years yet this is NASA proof of 4Gyr old moons from impact dating.

The yellow line indicates the Greenstreet et al. prediction for the cumulative density of craters on Pluto’s surface over 4 billion years for their “knee” model. Although not saturated in appearance, Nix and Hydra both exhibit slightly higher crater densities than Pluto and Charon, implying a surface age ≳4 byr. In other words, according to NASA’s data, Nix and Hydra are older than Pluto and Charon putting the cart before the horse. Nix and Hydra supposedly were created by a Pluto/Charon impact but they are older than their creators.

Eleven of nineteen impact data points lie between 1.8 and 2.9 billion years and 2 sit close to 3 billion years old. The remaining 4 sit close to 4 billion years and 2 look like 4.5 to 6 billion years. Without a 5 byr diagonal line it's hard to tell what the time frame's supposed to be for those data points to the right of the magenta diagonal line. All I'm trying to point out is that this impact data is not without significant potential problems. The density, gravity, mass and material these moons contain (ice vs regolith) introduce additional guesswork factors.

I created a more detailed analysis on page 67 of these impact crater charts showing how data was altered by Kelsi Singer.
Something I can now state with confidence is that the small moons and the smooth southern surface of Charon are not 4 billion years old.

You can count 3 and 11 craters on Hydra and Nix all you want but these moons are not 4 billion years old as indicated by the presence of a red tholin zit on Nix, high random spin rates, high reflectance (albedo), lack of pole alignment of the moons to Pluto/Charon, ammonia hydrates on all the moons which would photodisassociate within 20 million years, non amorphized crystalline water ice on Charon which can't exist longer than 100,000 years or you can believe NASA's 4 altered data impacts which date the moons at 4 to 6 byr while 12 data points indicate they are younger.

This photon disassembly process of ammonia hydrates is similar to carbon dating on Earth. Since there is no atmosphere or renewal process for the ammonia hydrates they must have been emplaced recently from outside not inside these satellites. The presence of ammonia hydrates with no method for replenishment on these moons tell us they are young, very young. 

This new information about these small moons kills one Pluto concept of mine.

I suggested that since we don't see ammonia on Pluto, it is not reasonable to assume it's present below the surface (turns out it was a reasonable assumption).

I further stated that just because we see it on Charon doesn't mean it exist on Pluto.

While that statement is correct, if we see it on Charon, Styx, Nix and Hydra which now we do then it is very reasonable to assume it is on Pluto.

When Charon was the one object out of six identified with ammonia there was a 17% chance it was also on Pluto but now that four out of six objects contain NH3 there is at least a 66% chance Pluto has NH3 and that figure is likely closer to 83%. Kerberos was too far/small to resolve but it probably has NH4 as well. 

There are two ways of adjusting my theory to align with this new information about ammonia found on three of the small moons. Either Nix is not a rock of ice ejected from Pluto (perhaps it came from Charon) or Pluto does have ammonia but just not detectable on the surface. Either way, this is significant information and in either case one of my theories is incorrect.

I've suggested two theories followed by a prediction the prediction was wrong which suggests one of the theories was also wrong.
Theory 1, Hydra was kicked off Charon - rational -

1. Hydra's reflectance signature (albedo) closely matches Charon's,
2. Fragments matching Hydra reside on Charon's frozen fossilized surface.
   
3. Hydra's high orbit (Mordor impact + pent up pressures = Hydra ejection at high kinetic energy)
4. Both have ammonia hydrates so this scenario still caries weight but I also suggested.

Theory 2, Nix was kicked off Pluto. - rational -

1. Nix's albedo more closely matches chunks at Sputnik Planitia near Norgay Montes
2. Vast pit at Norgay Montes and its direct alignment to Charon
   
3. Alignment of southern hemisphere damage on Charon and Pluto
4. Nix's low orbit (Charon shards hit Pluto sending P waves through to SP dislodging chunks with lower kinetic energy)
   
5. Assumption - Nix didn't come from Charon indicated by albedo, red tholin zit and low orbit.
   1. Nix has ammonia as does Charon so Nix could be a Charon chunk rather than Pluto (probably not)
6. Assumption - Since no ammonia was detected on Pluto, Pluto didn't have subsurface NH3.
   1. Nix has ammonia, if it came from Pluto then Pluto has ammonia (probably correct)
      

Assumption #6 led to the following errant prediction,
Prior to knowing Nix had ammonia and postulating it came from Pluto which had no detectable ammonia then I concluded Nix probably didn't have NH3 either. Since the prediction about Nix is wrong, the assumption about Pluto is probably wrong also.
Either way, one of the two theories 5 or 6 is wrong because Nix does have ammonia. 

Since Nix looks, smells and barks like a Pluto (similar albedo, red zit, low orbit), I'm going to continue to say it came from Pluto not Charon.

Since Nix has ammonia, it may have come from Charon but the albedo and tholin zit crater argue against this so I'm tossing this idea aside in favor of Pluto having ammonia. Conclusion, Pluto has NH3 because Nix came from Pluto and has it.

Pluto is the only of this system's six objects that is geologically active, this is probably why ammonia was detected on the dead moons but not on Pluto. 

Pluto's atmosphere of snowing methane and foggy nitrogen and fluid ocean of N2, CH4 and CO has probably buried the ammonia. I will continue to postulate Nix came from Pluto as I've suggested many times which then means Pluto has ammonia.

Since the suggested amount of 5% ammonia on Pluto would be required for there to be a subsurface ocean of water, detecting ammonia on Nix helps strengthen the case for it's existence on Pluto but concentration levels are still a complete guessing game since we can't even detect trace amounts. While this helps support the theory there could be a water ocean on Pluto it's far from conclusive.

Just because Pluto has NH3, doesn't mean there is an ocean of water. All the dead moons have ammonia yet none have an ocean of water. You need more than a cocktail of ammonia and ice to make an ocean. You also need temperatures, pressures and sufficient quantities of NH3 to make the infused frozen ammonia water ice into an ocean of liquid water.

While the required subsurface pressures could be achieved to produce an ocean of water and the ammonia does exist (in unknown quantities), the core is not large enough to be hot.

Without a large and hot enough core to produce sufficient heat, it is still an unlikely scenario to assume there is a water based ocean.

Since I don't know if tidal flexing could have generated enough heat energy to create the pressures and temperatures required to turn ammonia infused ice into liquid water, I keep falling back to observational evidence.

We see an ocean of nitrogen on the surface of Pluto at Sputnik Planitia in a semi fluid (toothpaste state and triple point liquid sometimes) state which continues to suggest to me that this is the subsurface fluid below the ice crust not water. 

If the mere presence of ammonia was enough to argue in favor of a subsurface ocean of water, Charon wouldn't be dead.

We see NH3 on the surface of Charon but it is not geologically active because it is too cold, too small with too low a density to have an active core hence no ocean of water and no geological activity no atmosphere.

Green blotches and freckles in this image are the detected NH3.

Multiple factors need to form together to create a subsurface ocean of water and when some factor's are missing just because others exist isn't a good enough premise to say there is liquid water. Sufficient heat is the primary required ingredient without an active core no water exists regardless of ammonia content. I went to some length on page 56 to explain why there isn't a hot core.

If I've misstated any information related to the science or interpretation of information please let me know so I can correct it.
In the mean time, guess what?

Ammonia hydrates on the small moons orbiting Pluto state that these moon's surfaces and potentially the moons themselves are much younger than 4 billion years, somewhere between 100 thousand to 20 million years. Within 20 million years the nonrenewable ammonia hydrates on the moons would be gone due to photolysis so, at least, the age of these moon's surfaces are less than that. This suggests, whatever dislodged Pluto/Charon's ejected debris and created these small moons probably occurred within the last 20 million years.

After a brief discussion with Alan Stern page 67 and seeing what nitrogen does at its triple point (page 68), I began pondering another possible explanation for the age of the surface of these small satellites and created a page called Splatter Painting page 69. Jason Cook a New Horizons team member indicated my nitrogen triple point splatter painting idea is "probably valid". Alan Stern and 50 other scientists created a paper supporting the age of these small satellites at 4 byr but I dissected that paper and found blatant intentional data flaws (page 67) disproving this crater counting method of age dating Pluto's small satellites at 4 byr.

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