The more time passes, the more everyone seems to jump on board NASA's train of thought regarding Pluto/Charon.
ALL ABOARD!! Next stop Pluto, NASA style. Here's my best effort to accurately portray the main stream NASA science theory about Pluto In the first few hundred million years of our solar system's formation, Pluto and Charon were formed between 20 AU to 30 AU from the Sun and they collided creating a debris field from which Charon and the four small moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra were formed. Pluto became differentiated by the impact and developed a 66% by mass (36% by volume, 71% by radius) 850 km radioactive hot rocky core. The differentiated rocky core radioactively heated Pluto and has kept an ocean of salty 5% ammonia water flowing for 4 billion years. This core is cooling and the ocean is freezing which is causing the extensional fractures on Pluto's surface as there are no thrust faults, lobate scarps or compressional tectonics . |
Here's Pluto with the basin of SP facing us. The dark blue band is NASA's theoretical subsurface ocean which bulges up toward SP weakening the ices at this location in turn creating more dense mass at this anti Charon location. This image is portraying NASA's subsurface ocean positive gravity anomaly. |
I'm trying to remain calm about both these drawing by James Keane but cartoon drawings like these really piss me off.
In these falsely portrayed drawings, James inserts the words "ejecta blanket" in an effort to support NASA's impact theory. Below I will show you an actual image taken by New Horizons of SP and you can clearly see there is no "ejecta blanket". This NASA paper written by Alan Stern and Bill McKinnon admits there is no visual evidence of ejecta at any impact site on Pluto. They explain it by the fact that methane snow probably has covered all evidence of impact ejecta. This concept of an ejecta blanket is a complete falsehood, a fabrication, a fantasy created by James Keane from listening to lectures by Bill McKinnon. Presenting false information like this as fact and intentionally misleading people is irresponsible at best and in my opinion reprehensible. Shame on you James Keane and Bill McKinnon, I don't care how smart you are, you are intentionally deceiving people. I respect most of the scientists that I disagree with as I believe they are simply doing their best to accurately interpret the information they see at Pluto but James & Bill have stepped into a whole different place with the falsehood presented by these images. |
This animation was created to support the subsurface ocean concept which is theoretically responsible for SP's true polar wander (Skin Slip page 81) and axial alignment with Charon. What I like most about this animation is how it illustrates and demonstrates my Torque Induced Tilt (TIT) due to uneven mass distribution idea which I expressed 6 months ago on page 41. |
This theory comes from a paper titled Reorientation and faulting of Pluto due to volatile loading within Sputnik Planitia
At first glance NASA's ideas seem like reasonable scenarios but I must play the devils advocate to see where I can find weaknesses in this concept. After all, isn't that what science is supposed to be all about? |
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 lacking impacts and is as youthful as the surface of SP. Yet the terrain is totally different. Would an impact cause this geological variance on each side of SP? |
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 similar to a rift along our ocean floor. This is why the land ice to the west and east of SP is pushed up. |
The right image sorta gives a simplified vision of what I see occurring on Pluto.
The Green line is where the subsurface rift is focused this is where Pluto is cracked open. The Pink arrows are the direction the nitrogen is migrating out of the subsurface crack. The Blue line is the western 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 bulge at Viking Tera is still in a fluid state this area is distended like it wants to burp. |
|
I have one simple question. Does Sputnik Planitia look like any of the above impact craters? No! Conclusion? SP is not an impact site! Its a geological site! |
Subsurface Ocean
I go back and forth on the subject of a differentiated core.
Is there a core or not a core is it still active or is it dead is it warm enough to create an ocean or not? While I may vacillate on the existence of a core, I really don't on the concept of its ability to heat Pluto enough to create an ocean of water. I just can't see it. 35 K is pretty cold and Pluto's core is too small and I have science (not scientists) on my side to prove it. Read on. |
This is what's fracturing Pluto not water ice which is supposedly already hot liquid cooling and freezing, rather nitrogen ices that have been heated by pressure are expanding. The question becomes could Pluto have been dormantly grown like Callisto then brought to life by some event?
Seems all the NASAites only believe Pluto and Charon could have been heated 4-4.5 billion years ago and it can only be winding down from that time. I don't think this way. I think our solar system is still dynamic and active and Pluto was given a heart beat more recently. The easiest idea is to say there's a 4 billion year old core, its hot and its creating all this geological activity or is it the easiest idea? Callisto does not align with this train of thought. |
Bill Mckinnon and clones say Pluto has a radioactive core, its still hot after 4 billion years and it comes from a core of silicate rock that's <70% the radius of Pluto (about 875km) is enriched with aluminium 26 (26Al) creating an ocean of water that is 5% ammonia and salty, it is cooling and freezing causing the expansion fractures on the surface.
OK lets see if we can't slow this train down. Lets take some silicate rock, that's the stuff we walk on every day. If you were to superimpose a 875km radius circle onto a US map it would cover about a quarter of the map. Suppose we take a bunch of dump trucks and haul a quarter of the soil from the US into space and leave it there for 4 billion years. Do you suppose it would generate enough radioactive heat from aluminium 26 to melt salty ice water infused with ammonia creating an ocean of water? |
YES!
According to this paper titled "Ocean worlds in the outer solar system" By F. Nimmo and R. T. Pappalardo at AGU Pub. Quote from the paper 5.2 Heat Production For the icy satellites, there are three main sources of heat: accretion, radioactive decay, and tidal heating. Even for Ganymede-size satellites, the gravitational energy released during accretion is rather modest, so that initial differentiation is not guaranteed [Barr and Canup, 2008]. (Ganymede is two and quarter times larger than Pluto) If accretion happens sufficiently rapidly, some melting will take place [e.g., Lunine and Stevenson, 1982], but the overall contribution to the existence of present-day oceans is minor to negligible. (In the outer solar system there are fewer objects with more space between them making accretion a slower process.) For many bodies, radioactive decay is the main source of heat. Unless satellites formed before 26Al became extinct (at about 3.5 Myr after solar system formation), the heating will have been dominated by decay of K, U, and Th. (K=Potasium, U=Uranium, Th=Thorium) |
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 850-875km) ancient heat cannot be stored in this manner.
End Quote Bill McKinnon has determined that Charon really does have a different, lighter composition than Pluto: the rock mass fraction of Charon is about 59% (the rest being ice), the rock mass fraction of Pluto is 66%. |
New Horizons didn't flyby twice (over the pole and equator) nor did it have a radar sounding system nor did it have a magnetometer to confirm whether or not there is a subsurface ocean.
We didn't perform any of these three tests, in other words we have not detected an ocean at Pluto (we infer or assume it) the core is too small and the Aluminium 26 is no longer radioactive (according to Wiki). Pluto's core is too small to be hot (according to Nimmo and McKinnon). We also don't know that Pluto is differentiated, we assume it is because 10 years before we got to Pluto we decided Pluto and Charon collided (McKinnon & Robin Canup). Chew! Chew! Chugga chugggga chuggggga chugggggggaaaaa pssshhhhhhhhhh, I hear that train slowing down a little. |
Let's assume there is ammonia in Pluto, water freezes at 273K so knock off 100K for added ammonia and you're still at 173K, Pluto is 35K. OK throw in some pressure and you drop the freezing point further but another 137 K. Hmmm!!! Add a small amount of rock that is radioactively dead and Hmmmmm!!!! I don't know just saying. I think I know how to convince you, I have a model rail road train set, maybe if I build that model, I can convince you. |
How was Pluto geologically dormant and then given a heart beat?
This is the story I like which I told on the previous page 49. Just because I like it, doesn't make it so. One to two billion years ago, while Pluto was wandering the solar system as a lone planet Neptune pushed another cluster of 3:2 resonant objects near enough to Pluto to initiate an elliptical spiral dance. This elliptical dance created strong tidal stretching forces between Pluto and this new group of objects. |
Eventually the smaller satellites of the Pleiades began returning to a tighter orbit which caused them to collide with Charon and Pluto this is what created Mordor and the small moons. This impact sent some of Charon into orbit and some into Pluto knocking bits off at SP.
The tidal stretching between Pluto/Charon caused both planets to warm and softening their underbellies. This stretching and pulling along with the returning impacting smaller satellites pounded Charon and possibly Pluto creating massive fractures causing the warmed subsurface fluids to spill out and launched debris into orbit creating the four small moons. |
I don't have the tools or ability to prove any of this through modeling but if I did, I'm sure I could create a model that supports this scenario. That's my point about models. If you can conceive it, you can model it. And just because you can model it, doesn't necessarily make it a correct concept.
I encourage you to read this paper on how we modeled the concept of a subsurface ocean. It goes something like this, Add some salt a dash of pepper throw in 5% ammonia, increase the pressure then add some heat take out a little salt add a few billion years take away some pepper reduce the radiation add more silicate rock increase the ice layer take away more time add some more ammonia toss in some 26Al increase the water thin the ice add more salt and we get 50 different potential ocean scenarios. Then |
Viola! Pluto has an ocean.
We don't know Pluto is differentiated, we don't know SP is an impact site, we don't know there is a hot core, we don't know there is an ocean of water, we don't know whether Pluto and Charon collided, we don't know the age of the moons yet here we are patting ourselves on the back aligning and agreeing with each other about all our assumptions as if we know what we're talking about. CAN I GET EVERYBODY'S ATTENTION? THE TRAIN LEAVES IN TEN MINUTES! This brief interlude at the depot of original thought is over, The train's about to leave the station please have your tickets ready and re-board the familiarly run NASA brain train. Chew! Chew! |