Sputnik Planitia Compared to Hellas

NASA scientist Bill McKinnon lectured on Sputnik Planum at LPSC 47 calling it an impact site (his lecture starts at 1hr 56 min if you want to skip to it.

The below image was used by Bill to compare Sputnik Planitia (SP) to the crater on Mars called Hellas.

Bill stated, "This is evidence that SP is an impact site".

Bill continued to explain how the object impacted at the center traveling southward as is indicated by the circle and arrow in the below image presented by Bill.

To his credit, when Bill was asked (2hrs 27min 30sec) in this video about the missing ejecta blanket, he admitted there was none as there should be if it were an impact site. He did, however, proceed to perform a bit of a tap dance during this admission. You may wish to read the slight of hand page 57  as well as page 70 on basins as they both relate to this subject.

Bill followed up with the below image demonstrating how an impact creates oblique features after an impact. It was further noted how the oblique shape of SP shows how this is an impact site with the impact traveling from north to south.

In the below image take note of how the greatest degree of damage is at the center of the impact while the lightest damage follows down stream of the impact creating an oblique feature. Now lets see if Bill's statement holds true.

Painful Questions

When a question was presented to Bill at the end of his speech, he choked a bit then nervously chuckled and had one simple answer. (2:27:30 in the above video)

The question was, "If a large impact of this nature occurred at this location wouldn't there be rocky debris splattered around the edges and on the surface?" Bill simply nervously chuckled and answered "Yes, well um very astute observation". Then he went on to babble about obliquity which sounded like a politician avoiding a question but finished up by saying we need to go back to Pluto. 

​In other words his impact model is a conceptual fabrication unsupported by visible facts.

This is what a more accurate representation of the SP basin would look like.

Drawing a big circle in the middle of SP manipulates your eyes to see only what you are expected to see, a big circle but that's not what SP is.

See what is actually there and you will notice it doesn't look like a big impact basin.

By drawing this big circled area and associating it with Hellas Planitia on Mars, your mind imprints this image as a round deep impact site.

During Bill's lecture he suggested SP is an impact site, a message that has wormed it's way into nearly every science paper and article written since he proposed this idea.

There are several massive flaws with this impact idea.

• There's no ejecta
• There's no rings

• Size, since this basin is so large, Bill suggests it must be older than 4 Gyr.
• SP is geologically active, impact craters do not become geologically active.
• Active geology eats away at impact craters making them disappear (impact craters get smaller or erode over time).
  

Continuing on with Bill's presentation.
Bill shows this series of 3 different impacts occurring at oblique angles of 20, 10 and 5 degrees.
Notice how readily your eye is drawn to the first impact at 20 degrees, it has a nearly identical shape to Hellas and the circular area outlined by Bill in SP.

Immediately you associate SP with this shape, don't you?
Bill doesn't suggest the 20 degree obliquity scenario is what happened at SP, instead he indicates SP was created by an impactor that hit at a 5 degree angle of obliquity.

The importance of the 5 degree impact angle comes into play because there is no ejecta blanket anywhere around SP so this 5 degree strike angle is used by Bill to suggest all the ejecta traveled south into the shadows where we can't see it.

Why show a round impact with an angle of 20 degrees if it isn't part of your impact theory premise?
Why, because it shows the shape needed to associate it with SP but its ejecta blanket presents a conflict with observational evidence. By showing pictures that emphasize a large circular 20 degree hit but talking about a 5 degree impact you are subconsciously accepting a visual circular representation of facts while hearing and accepting an explanation describing an impact angle of 5 degrees superimposed over each other. Bill shows 3 images with circles or circular patterns. He draws one around SP, he shows Hellas basin then he shows an impact of 20 degrees. Yet he says a 5 degree impact angle was responsible for creating SP (a carrot shaped impact).

If the impact occurred at 5 degrees, as Bill suggests, SP would not look like it does instead it would look more like a carrot shape.

Even if an impactor came in at a 5 degree angle there would still have been ejecta material off to the sides as seen in this image the blue is where the impact took place and the red spray pattern is the ejecta. Ejecta still sprays out to the sides with a 5 degree hit.

When this fact was pointed out to Bill he simply said "That's why we need to go back to Pluto".

The missing ejecta is a significant problem for this impact theory.

Does SP look like this carrot shape?

Below is a closeup topographical images of this carrot shaped impact. The two most obvious features are the raised side wall ridges and the laterally sprayed ejecta pattern. Even though the object hit at an 8 to 2 o-clock diagonal line, material sprayed out perpendicular to that direction of impact. Another obvious significant observation is this impact site is not geologically active. Sputnik Planitia is geologically active and in fact was created by geology not an impact.

Another oblique impact on Mars with material fanned out to the sides creating what is called the butterfly effect. Bill McKinnon knows this is how material is ejected but it doesn't fit his concept so he ignores it.

Did I forget to mention this site is not geologically active?

A 20 degree impact angle produces a near circular crater (blue).

I created the two below drawings displaying, to scale, the hypothesized subsurface ocean and the 150 km impactor that supposedly created the ocean, Sputnik Planitia and basin depression 1300 km by 900 km. Some scientists indicate SP is 1400 km long but I chose to use the most commonly used figures of 1300 x 900.

Francis Nimmo pre-flyby
What leads to Oceans? A conductive (no convection) ice shell is required to make an ocean (Desch et al 2009). This shell basically lets the heat out from the core. This heating then melts the bottom of the ice shell creating an ocean. The presence of an ocean changes the stress history. In the creation of an ocean, you are replacing low-density ice with higher density water and this introduces compression stresses. An air gap would develop between the bottom of the ice shell and the more compact water into which the ice would collapse creating primarily surface compression features.

For a silicate core >1000 km in radius the heat diffusion timescale is longer than the age of the solar system, so large silicate cores provide a long-term reservoir of energy which can potentially maintain a subsurface ocean. Conversely, for bodies with small silicate core radii like Enceladus or Tethys, (and I include Pluto at 850km) ancient heat cannot be stored in this manner.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103511003320
In most of our models present-day Pluto consists of a convective ice shell without an ocean. However if the reference viscosity is higher than 5×10 15 Pas, (More than two times the pressure inside a W80 nuclear warhead detonation (64 billion bar) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(pressure)) the shell will be conductive and an ocean should be present.. If Pluto never developed an ocean, predominantly extensional surface tectonics should result, and a fossil rotational bulge will be present. For the cases which possess, or once possessed, an ocean, no fossil bulge should exist.

A present-day ocean implies that compressional surface stresses should dominate, perhaps with minor recent extension (instead we see the exact opposite conditions, extensional faults dominate while compression stresses are minor inferring there is no ocean). An ocean that formed and then re-froze should result in a roughly equal balance between (older) compressional and (younger) extensional features. These predictions may be tested by the New Horizons mission. The only thing New Horizons determined was that there are more expansion fractures than there are compression ridges. No data collected by New Horizons remotely suggests there is an ocean. The concept of a subsurface ocean is complete conjecture. Nimmo makes an interesting point, extensional features are a sign of youthful activities. Both Pluto and Charon display extensional (younger) features.

All NASA scientists refer to the nitrogen fluid at SP as a convection process like lava lamps yet Nimmo indicates convection ice would not produce a subsurface ocean only conduction ice would do that. Think of convection ice like hot blobs of oil in water. Its a bubble of warm amorphous fluid in another cooler more dense amorphous fluid, whereas, conduction ice is a rigid crystalline lattice like copper wire that conducts electrons or in our case heat energy via localized vibrations some vibrational energy into the lattice but mostly it resides nearest to the point of contact. Heat transfer in a conduction ice has to pass via vibrating energy that starts and is focused at one edge and propagates through the rigid structure as it amorphizes or disassembles (softens) the lattice structure of the rigid ice.

The theoretical thin shell separating the base of SP and the ocean below is postulated to only be 62.5 km thick. This would allow colder temperatures from above to readily reach the ocean water below and freeze it especially since that water dome is the farthest point away from its heat source and nearest to cold temperatures. In this scenario, cold temperatures from above only have 62 km to travel while warm temperatures have 266 km to travel. Which one's going to dominate? Temperatures at the surface of SP are 35-40 K. Add ammonia antifreeze to water/ice and the freezing temperature for ice goes from 273 down to 176 degrees Kelvin. Pluto's surface temperature is 130 K below that point.

At the time these below images were drawn by James Keane, the theoretical impactor was said to hit Pluto at an angle greater than 45 degrees.

Below is a cartoon created by James Keane which falsely represent an ejecta blanket along the edge of Sputnik Planitia. The need for indicating the impact occurred at 45 degrees, as represented in the right James Keane drawing, is to support the ocean uplift theory which in turn creates a theoretical positive gravity anomaly which is supposed to explain why SP is directly aligned opposite Charon. However, SP is a negative not positive gravity anomaly and is not an impact site, it is a geologically active zone on Pluto and is the center of Pluto's heart beat.

In addition to the above,  consider the difference between the two sides of SP.

To the west there is a ridge running from north to south along which we see bulging land masses, stretch marks, fold mountains, cryovolcanoes and turbulent looking deep fluid welling up.

To the east in the uplands, the surface is as youthful as is seen at SP. Yet the terrain is totally different. Would an impact cause this variance on each side of SP?

SP is a geologically active zone that is creating fold mountains, fluid falls, cryovolcanoes, foggy wetlands and an atmosphere.

Impact site????

This is how I visualize what I see taking place at SP. Basically its a tear or a rip in Pluto running mostly Northwest to Southeast.

Place your two hands together like you are praying then while keeping your pinkies together open your hands at your thumbs.

To me this is what the western edge of SP is doing, its prying apart in a long line or underground chasm.

The right image sorta gives a simplified vision of what I see occurring on Pluto.

The Green line is where the subsurface pressure is focused this is where Pluto is cracked open.

The Pink arrows are the general direction the nitrogen is migrating out of the subsurface crack.

The Blue lines are the compression ridge that is created by the land ice resisting the upwelling fluids, in turn, forcing the flow eastwards.

The Yellow lines are the nearby bulge created by the subsurface nitrogen pressure. The further it extends westwards it has frozen and collapsed creating Peri Planitia, whereas the subsurface fluid creating the bulge at Viking Tera is still in a pressurized state this area is distended like it wants to burp.

The green fracture line exist because of Pluto's alignment with Charon. While they are currently in near circular orbits they weren't always and Charon's gravitational pull and presence is at the very least squeezing (compressing) Pluto at this location. It would be more accurate to say Charon is bulging Pluto at SP as Pluto collapses and squeezing its own crust at this location. Charon's gravity has distended, bulged and weakened the crust at SP while Pluto's gravity has collapsed it.

Because of its smaller size, Charon has frozen, it is hard as a rock and not collapsing but Pluto has some residual warmth making it pliable for the time being also as a result of being larger, Pluto is better able to hang onto its more volatile gasses.

To the west of SP, Pluto is radically different than it is to the east. Pluto has a split personality created by SP.

Does Hellas Basin on Mars or Valhalla basin on Callisto show radical
differences from their western and eastern sides?

Look at these next few images of impacts on icy moons and ask yourself.
Do any of these impacts look like what I see on Pluto at SP?

Iapetus of Saturn

Valhalla on Callisto of Jupiter

Iapetus of Saturn

Hyperion of Saturn

Rhea of Saturn

Tethys of Saturn

Hellas basin on Mars

Mimas of Saturn

Odysseus Crater on Tethys of Saturn

Archimedes Crater on the Moon

Lunar Impact Basin

Ernest Wright, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Lunar Impact

Notice the difference between these impacts compared to the theoretical "impact" on Pluto?
My conclusion is that this is not an impact site as it looks nothing like any other impact site.
This is a tear in Pluto's crust from which nitrogen/methane ices are expelling.

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OK! so you say, all the above images don't show a fluid back filling the craters like we see at Pluto.
Here you go

Pingualuit Crater Canada

Chicxulub Crater Yucatan Peninsula Mexico Gravity field image

Chicxulub Crater Mexico

Manicougan Crater Canada

Impact Crater on Europa

Lonar crater Maharashtra Photo credit Mangesh dams Panoramio

Tswaing crater South Africa Photo credit M J Gaylard

Deep Bay Canada

Bosumtwi Ghana

Below are two images of impacts on Pluto very near Sputnik Planitia. One would think these impacts would appear similar to SP if SP was an impact site.

I have one simple question.
Does Sputnik Planitia look like any of the above impact craters?
No!
Conclusion?
SP is not an impact site!

The real problem for the impact theory is that Sputnik Planitia is geologically active.

The nitrogen fluid rising up from below is forming the landscape. Pushing, squeezing fracturing compressing and expanding the land ice surface.

Impact sites look like holes punched into the surface because that's what they are, whereas, SP is an active live nitrogen lava like caldera similar to what we see in the mouth of volcanoes on earth.

NASA scientists describe the surface of SP as having convection cells.

Caldera's exhibit convection cells which move on shorter time scales than one would expect to see at SP with its sluggish pasty nitrogen ices but the process is very similar with the variance primarily being temperature and time.

Subsurface fluids flow from the NW to the SE while soft nitrogen surface ices migrate atop SP and flow from the wetlands SE to N. This creates a churning effect in this NW quadrant of SP similar to rip tides on earth. Whirlpools, Eddy's, a river delta and land ice blocks are dislodged  around the NNW section of SP showing the constant activity in this area.

To understand this geological movement we'll take a close look at Venera Terra and travel SE down into Sputnik Planitia. Seeing this process helps you understand how SP is a geological feature and part of a larger process not an impact.

The nitrogen fluid that was once under Venera Terra migrated underground towards SP or the surface ice crust slipped over a hot spot.

Along with breaking off large ice blocks, the flowing fluid has also created river delta looking patterns with waves frozen into the nitrogen mix contained within SP. In this one image below there are eddy's, whirlpools, waves, river deltas and dislodged eroded ice blocks migrating into the ocean of nitrogen.

All this subsurface roiling and churning has created these cryovolcanoes along the Western North edge of SP.

These current's push massive icebergs southward into a land zone that is crater free and soft like thick cold mud. The two mile high icebergs are compressing the semi frozen mud into 2 mile high mounds as the fluid creeps inland like a slow tsunami.

The fold mountains have mounds with mouths spilling fluids out of them like cryovolcanoes creating tributaries rivers and lakes of gray fluid.

To the south eastern side of SP fluid flows off the uplands or wetlands back into SP creating a scene that looks similar to Niagara Falls.

To the south of SP at the night day terminator line we can see fog which is created by SP. The moisture (CH4, N2, CO) in this fog is wrung out like a wash cloth as the fog climbs up the uplands cools condenses then flows back into SP.

The name "Tartarus" as in Tartarus Dorsa is the name of  the deep abyss (hell) that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato in Gorgias (c. 400 BC), souls were judged after death and where the wicked received divine punishment.

In the heart of Siberia's boreal forest gapes a monstrous chasm local Yakutians call a "gateway to the underworld," connecting this life to the next.

Below is the Batagaika crater. This crater began forming in the 1960's and is believed to have developed by methane deposits in the permafrost escaping collapsing the land into a crater. Perhaps there is a similar process occurring at Piri Planitia and SP. Methane gasses as they warm on Pluto as on Earth may be causing surface land features to collapse into depressions.

The Batagaika crater is what scientists are now calling a "megaslump": an immense void, or "thermokarst," in the geomorphology of a permafrost landscape. These sudden rifts appear when permafrost is allowed to rapidly thaw, causing scar zones to sink into the "saturated slurry." They can remain active for decades at a time. And while understandably terrifying, thaw slumps are a pretty typical feature in Arctic environments like Siberia.

Batagaika crater was formed by subsurface erosion processes suggesting Piri Planitia & SP may as well.

Piri Planitia is a depression in the land ice surface created by erosion processes eating away and evaporating methane and nitrogen from below the surface much like we see at Batagaika.

NW of Sputnik Planitia is Venera Terra which in past years was in a softened nitrogen fluid state from the warm underground nitrogen. Some of these recent impact craters look like they punched completely through the ice crust sinking into the fluid below? This along with a lack of impact craters suggest the crust here is thin and relatively young.

The fluid continued to pour into the SP basin/caldera from the NW and up from below. There are many polygonal convection cells lined by lower troughs on the surface of SP similar to lava lakes in a caldera on Earth. SP is a collapsed crustal basin 2 miles deep slowly writhing with warmed nitrogen.

Along the North Western edge of SP, fluids flow south and east creating river deltas and wave patterns in the soft nitrogen ice.

Just south of the volcanoes along the Western South edge of SP fluid is bubbling up and outward from the land ice breaking off ice blocks which are carried south by the primary current down to the pit creating the iceberg mountains at Norgay Montes.

The pressure being applied to this land mass is creating a ridge line of fold mountains further inland.

Moving east from SP the uplands aka wetlands begin to wring moisture out of the foggy wet atmosphere flowing it back into SP. This process dries the air creating long penitente icicles (aka Tartarus Dorsa) further inland to the east.

This land surface east of SP has no impact craters so it is renewed quickly and must be soft yet icy rigid.

Tartarus Dorsa is bulging upward from subsurface pressures with expansion fractures lining the mounds of mountains leading north to the mouth of the spider. Tall ice spikes called penitentes lean southward in this area from arid south blowing winds.

At the center of the spider is another cryovolcano which was created by underground pressures pushing the land up creating extensional fractures leading to this central point of subsurface pressures.

It is safe to conclude that Sputnik Planitia is not an impact site simply from the fact that there is no ejecta blanket nor is there a circular ring pattern around its edges but when we add in the fact that SP is an active caldera creating erosion, fold mountains, cryovolcanoes, expansion fractures, atmospheric fog, lakes, river deltas, eddy's, waves and whirlpools it becomes ridiculous to think SP is an impact site.

There are indicators at Viking Terra with it's distended bulge and in the area south of Piri Planitia with its corrosive looking landscape that suggest there are subsurface processes taking place.

Take note of the crinkled puckered surface feature to the south of both Piri Planitia and Viking Terra.

It suggests the land ice is being heated and eroded from below.

Viking Terra bulges while Piri is collapsed similar to Batagaika and to the immediate south the terrain is crinkled.

Sputnik Planitia is the heart of Pluto's heat source welling up from below creating all this geological activity.

I hope you clearly see how SP is an active geological site not an impact site.

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