The idea of tidal flexing having occurred at some point between Pluto and Charon is about as concrete and solid a concept you will get in our universe. I guesstimate there is a 99.9999% chance Pluto and Charon entered into an elongated off center orbit around each other at some point before they became tidally locked. I raned the numbers, checked the math, I'm a fart smeller an donte mayk misteaks so I no the 99.99999% value is acurit.
I am going to build up from this one solid foundational fact. At some point, Pluto/Charon shared an eccentric elliptical orbit creating tidal flex. You can trust this foundation, whether or not I place shaky conceptual walls or an arguably suspicious roof is another point that can be debated but the foundation is more solid than granite it's as irrefutable as anything gets. |
What is the foundation upon which NASA has built their Pluto/Charon theories?
I can sum it up in one word, models. The impact of Charon and Pluto is the basis for the separation of the ice from rock in Pluto creating the differentiated core. Without the impact energy the rocky material would have stayed suspended in rock ice just like we see at Callisto page 49. |
Ten years before we got to Pluto, NASA scientists decided Pluto and Charon collided and this became their fundamental foundational fact upon which all their subsequent theories would stand.
Robin Canup was able to create a variation on the large body Earth/Moon collision model, however, new studies show the Moon formed from multiple smaller sized impacts not one big impact. Quote from above study It is difficult to reconcile giant-impact models with the compositional similarity of the Earth and Moon without violating angular momentum constraints... When other scientists couldn't successfully create a model of Pluto/Charon colliding and surviving as two separate masses Robin was asked to provide her expertise. In Robin's model, the two bodies that collided had to be uniform, not differentiated, prior to collision else the model didn't work. In the model where the collision worked, Charon hit Pluto with a slow glancing blow which kept Charon's temperature at 30 K. Only about 5% of Pluto was heated to between 150-300 K and about 35% was heated to between 85-150 K. |
Fig. 1. Time series of a potential Pluto-Charon–forming impact yielding a planet-disk system (run 70 in table S1 with N 0 120,000 particles). Results are shown looking down onto the plane of the impact at times t - 1.3, 3.2, 7.5, 11.8, 14.5, and 24.6 hours; units shown are distance in 103 km. Color indicates material type (blue, water ice; orange, dunite; red, iron), with all of the particles in the 3D simulation overplotted in order of increasing density. The impacting objects are identical—both are predifferentiated into 40% ice mantles and 60% rock cores by mass with initial surface temperatures set to 150 K, increasing with depth (7) to a central temperature ,800 K. After an initially oblique impact in the counterclockwise sense (A), the two objects separate (B and C) before recolliding. After the second collision, the denser cores migrate toward the center, as a bar-type mode (36) forms in the rapidly rotating merged objects (D). From each end of the bar emanate spiral structures (D and E), whose self-gravity acts to transport angular momentum from inner to outer portions. The arms wrap up on themselves and finally disperse to yield a ring (36) of material (whose differential motion would on a longer time scale produce a disk), together with the central planet (F).
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Based on this foundational concept of an impact, the differentiated Pluto core scenario was built.
This is Robin's impact model of two bodies with differentiated cores prior to collision. I suspect this is where the other scientist's models failed. Color indicates material type (blue = water ice; orange = dunite (90% Olivine rock); red = iron)), With solid core's these two bodies merge into one and leave a ring of debris. Robin explains this is why you can't use a model based on two planets with differentiated cores. The planets must be uniform prior to impact. Conclusion - for the collision model to work Pluto and Charon had to be uniform at the time of impact or the model simply doesn't work. According to this paper titled "Ocean worlds in the outer solar system" By F. Nimmo and R. T. Pappalardo at AGU Pub. Quote 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 875km) ancient heat cannot be stored in this manner. End Quote Francis Nimmo is saying that for planets with a core radius smaller than 1000 km, ancient radioactive core heat is not possible and for core radius' greater than 1000 km it is only potentially possible.
In 1997 (20 years ago) Bill McKinnon wrote a paper where he said the following. Pluto’s ice/rock+ice ratio is supposed to be about 0.65 (McKinnon et al., 1997) and for a differentiated Pluto the silicate core would be roughly 40% of the volume. If Pluto were fully differentiated, the largest it's core's radius can possibly be is 875km. The core radius is likely smaller than 875 km since Pluto wasn't fully heated by the theoretical impact. Robin's successful model of Pluto/Charon colliding demonstrates there wasn't enough heat generated in the collision to fully differentiate Pluto's core. |
This is Robin's collision model of two bodies that have uniform cores prior to impact. Solid blue shows temperatures between 0 and 50K and subsequently indicates any existing rock is suspended in rock hard ice.
The larger body represents Pluto, Robin points out how you can see Charon does not get heated above 30 K remaining blue while a small portion of Pluto does get warm. An even smaller portion heats to 200K while most of the heated material is in the yellow green temperature range which is between 60 and 150K. The other thing noted here is that much less than half of Pluto was heated to higher temperatures in this model perhaps 30% to 40% her paper does not specify the portion that heats but the image shows a small yellow green section. This means this collision model supports a partially differentiated core not a fully differentiated core. 60% to 70% of Pluto remains completely unheated in this collision model. A fully differentiated core's radius would only be 875km. Being generous by saying this partially differentiated core is 40% of a full core means the partial core's radius would at best be 350km. This is far far too small a core to still be hot after 4 billion years. Consider this, Pluto is less than 1 percent the mass of the earth 0.22% and only 17.7% the mass of our moon. Being generous by saying this partially differentiated core is 40% of a full 40% radius volume core means the partial core's radius would at best be 350km. Quote from Robin's collision model paper In moon-producing impacts, the satellite material experienced little heating (Temp = 30 K), because it had for the most part avoided direct impact with the planet, whereas the target was heated more substantially (Fig. 2). |
Fig. 2. Time series of a potential Pluto-Charon–forming impact yielding a planet-moon system (run 20 in Table 1 with N 0 20,000 particles). Results are shown at times t = 0, 0.9, 3.2, 5.9, 7.5, 11.2, and 27.5 hours; distances are shown in units of 103 km and color scales with the change in temperature in kelvin. The impacting objects have uniform serpentine compositions. After an initially very oblique impact with a 73- impact angle (A), the two objects separate (B and C) and during this period the smaller impactor receives a net torque from the distorted figure of the target. After a second, even more grazing encounter (D), an additional portion of the impactor is accreted onto the planet, while the rest self-contracts into an intact moon containing 12% of the central planet’s mass that is again torqued by the ellipsoidal figure of the target (D and E) onto a stable orbit with a semimajor axis of 6.5 Rp and an eccentricity of e 0 0.5. The final moon in (F) is described by 2232 SPH particles.
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Since an errant fully differentiated core idea was firmly entrenched for 10 years in everyone's mind, an ocean of water model was the natural next step and was subsequently created, based on the ocean of water idea the existence of ammonia antifreeze became necessary, likewise, out of the ocean theory, a positive gravity anomaly developed to explain Sputnik Planitia's alignment with Charon.
Based on the positive gravity anomaly a thin crust under SP came into existence, based on the thin crust concept we developed an impact theory at SP now based on an ocean there is potential alien life swimming around. |
Based on the positive gravity anomaly model at SP we now have true polar wonder which was caused by a theoretical impact at 60 degrees north of its current location.
I do not exaggerate the point, when I say, all of these ideas come from models built on models, built on models, built on models, built on models. Now we see cartoon drawings presented as science fabricating a concept of an "ejecta blanket" as evidence to support these model based theories. Bill McKinnon seems to still be selling SP as an impact site and as a result James Keane is drawing images of nonexistent ejecta. |
This is a really cool artists' impression standing on Pluto along the north of Sputnik Planitia looking south.
This artist impression of SP is inspiring and looks amazing. Nice job John Kaufmann. I love how John represents Charon and the small size of the sun with troughs in SP, red tholin covered ice blocks, floating icebergs, towering ice block cliff faces and a misty fog it all matches what exists there. |
How did we get to this point where falsified cartoons are now sitting as the basis of scientific explanation.
When a carpenter has to cut many pieces of wood to the same length they will often cut one piece to the exact size then use it as a template to measure all the other pieces against, this way they are never more than one erroneous cut away from the original measurement. |
To see how this works, lets begin with the first model.
Did they? Nobody knows. It took some significant effort to coax this Pluto/Charon collision model into existence. Just because we can coax a model into existence doesn't make it a correct concept, so let's explore it from a probability point. |
Based on all the other examples in our solar system, 100 percent of all moons are captured or accreted objects including our own. We now have evidence that our own moon formed from multiple smaller impacts not one Mars or larger sized impact. This places the Pluto/Charon collision model's probability of being correct extremely low. It certainly is not the norm and in fact it is a very unlikely scenario since there are no other examples of it occurring in our solar system. |
The small moon's albedos are also too bright to be 4 byr.
Cosmic radiation would make these moons really dark after 4 byr of cooking. Other 3:2 resonant Plutinos in the area have much much darker albedos similar to charcoal while Pluto's small moons have albedos closer to pure ice. Nix and Hydra's albedos vary enough to suggest they are different objects not accreted from the same material. Accreted material would be more uniform in brightness across all the moons and would be much darker. Circular orbits are supposed to be an indication the orbiting body has been around for a long time but that rule only applies for captured objects not ejected objects. |
Nix has a red tholin impact zit on it's forehead suggesting this moon was impacted by an object from Pluto's surface that was covered in tholin. The only way I can think to explain this zit is to look at the one place where we see red tholin (Pluto) and deduce a small object came from Pluto got launched into orbit and collided with Nix. This object had to get launched into orbit AFTER Pluto developed tholin on its surface which in and of itself would have taken a long time. Pluto would have had to develop into a large body with N2 & CH4, create an atmosphere, convert that atmosphere into a tholin sludge then have a piece knocked off, orbit at the same elevation as Nix then finally hit Nix. All these factors (albedo, spin, zit, pole alignment) suggest these moons did not come from a Pluto/Charon impact 4 byr but rather much more recently. |
Impacts on Hydra and Nix have been used to suggest they are 4 billion years old and this then "proves" Charon collided with Pluto.
NASA used 3 impacts on Hydra (three!) and 11 on Nix to conclude they are both 4 billion years old. This seems ridiculous to me, correction this is ridiculous. The yellow dots on this image of Nix were placed there by NASA scientist Kelsi Singer. The red arrows were added by me which point to additional impacts. |
This is NASA's "Proof" Charon impacted Pluto, 3 and 11 impacts verify it conclusively. this Kelsi Singer chart with lines squares, circles and triangles is NASA's "Proof" that Charon and Pluto collided and its an ancient event.
I'm sorry but, well I'm just sorry. I must be a complete imbecile. If Pluto and Charon collided leaving behind a cloud of debris that accreted into 4 objects and those objects only have 3 and 11 impacts as confirmation of 4 byr surfaces. New evidence related to ammonia hydrates found on the moons of Pluto page 61 proves through chemistry and photolysis this NASA theory is wrong. On page 67, I also show how the data in this chart is falsified by Kelsi Singer. Deep breath and moving on. |
Callisto is nearly exactly the same density as Pluto (1.85 g/cm3) and totes one of, if not, the oldest undisturbed surfaces in the solar system meaning its never been active. Its uniform and dead.
Callisto at twice the size of Pluto (twice the ability to create internal heat from gravitational crushing pressure), is at the same density and warmer than Pluto has more than twice the likelihood of becoming differentiated with a large enough core to be currently hot yet it has never resurfaced itself and is thus dead. That's what a Pluto density of 1.86 g/cm3 at 40K and a total radius of 1187km gets you, a uniform cold dead interior. |
This image on the other hand, presents the mainstream mind set on how Pluto and Charon's interior looks because of NASA scientists being married to a collision model which has massive holes in it. Pluto is probably less likely than 5% to be hot and alive from silicate rock with 26Al. Actually, I'm going out on a limb and stating it's not possible based on Robin's model and Bill McKinnon's percent of rock ratio and Nimmo's size requirements statement. |
Without heat, where's that put the subsurface ocean theory?
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With NASA's model of a hot core in Pluto, you'd also need a hot core in Charon to explain the fluid that flowed at Vulcan Planum because that's the only source of heat energy they are presenting as a possible scenario for Pluto.
For them there are no other options, so they seem suspiciously silent on the subject of Charon's past fluid flow. What caused this subsurface fluid on Charon? Certainly not density or heat from a theoretical impact You know what I'm referring to, that stuff that coated the entire southern hemisphere with a smooth layer. how do their models address this? They don't so they ignore it. I haven't heard a peep out of one scientist on this subject. If Pluto and Charon collided, then a differentiated core in Charon is not possible based on Robin Canup's collision model. In her model impacting bodies with preexisting differentiated cores dissipated into one body with a splattered debris field. |
Planetary scientist James Keane is now creating drawings or cartoons sprinkled with falsehoods as supporting evidence of an impact that created SP 60 degrees north and east of its current position.
This impact theory needs a subsurface ocean, above which a thinned ice crust is created allowing for an ocean of water to well up into in order to create a positive gravity anomaly to produce true polar wander which needs a radioactive core which needs an impact with Charon. No hot core equals no water ocean which equals no positive gravity anomaly which equals no true polar wander. On the other hand, how these two animals became friends is a true polar wonder to me. There are four reasons I give on Page 50 why SP is not an impact site. This is how the weak foundation causes the walls to buckle and crumble. All theories built on a weak foundational theory make their premise questionable. The foundation has to be solid for subsequent ideas to stand firm. If you don't have an impact or one that creates a large enough core you don't have heat without heat no ocean etc... |
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This is as simple as it gets, even with an impact scenario Pluto's core is far too small to be hot. All these other complex modeled scenarios fail after this.
Their foundation is broke. I usually struggle to understand half of the content in these scientific papers but what I consistently see and understand is that a myriad of complex variables and assumptions are required to build these models and then test them.
If any one assumption is wrong the entire outcome of the model can change drastically. As an example: take Einstein's cosmological constant. Einstein chose to force his math to match the outcome he wanted and so it did with lambda his cosmological constant but he was wrong the universe is expanding even though he didn't want it to. Every added assumption complicates the model driving it potentially further and further from reality or perhaps closer depending on the model. Build complex model on top of complex model and the variables take on a life of their own. |
Einstein quote here "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough", so I carry on, Sometimes I feel like I'm back in the geocentric age where a model proved the universe revolved around the Earth and for 1,400 years the geocentric model was a studied, known fact. We need a modern day Copernican to stand up and simplify this modeling mayhem at Pluto/Charon. |
Einstein quote "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth"
I don't want us to spend 1,400 years believing false concepts about Pluto. I'm doing my best to dumb this stuff down at least to the level I can understand it and I hope that helps others who are similar to me in this regard. I know I make mistakes with my interpretations but I'm also able to understand when logic becomes illogical or errant reasoning is no longer reasonable to accept. |
I am simply trying to follow a logical line of thought that makes sense using the evidence and information NASA scientists and New Horizons are providing and the facts don't add up. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings and step on toes. I simply don't see anyone else expressing any ideas contrary to NASA's. If not me, then who? What I can't not do, I must do, so I do what I can |
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I may get some stuff wrong here but the one thing you can rely on is the foundation, mine is rock solid. Or should I say uniform with partial differentiation solid?
Nobody can disagree with this foundation. We can dicker over time frames or degrees of magnitude or external influences like impacts but not the basis. This foundation is irrefutable. |
Currently my favorite model (theory) goes something like this.
Pluto and Charon at some point were in an elongated shared orbit creating tidal flexing heat energy. These conditions may not exist now but at some point they did. They had to. Whereas NASA's impact model is about 98% not likely to have occurred, this theory is 99.9999% likely to have occurred putting the two theories at complete opposite extremes of the probability spectrum. Tidal flexing is heat energy by squishing, rubbing, twisting, bending, pulling or kneading. Its induced energy from repeated back and forth movement creating heat. Like I said before, I may get aspects of the walls and roof theories wrong but the foundation of my model is solid so let's build a structure on this foundation to see how well it stands up. |
Pluto and Charon when first introduced to each other spun around in eccentric elliptical orbits like a matador and a bull or two Latino dancers performing the Tango.
This early wild swing in and out caused tidal flexing. At this time they danced around in a way that caused them to pull and tug on each other bending and stretching while heating their innards. All this back and forth motion turned the rock hard condensed and compressed gasses into softened expanded fluid gasses and eventually gaseous gasses creating increased internal pressures. |
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As these gasses migrated from their more compressed dense form to the next expanded form, pressure's built in the interior of each planet.
Charon is smaller and more of a water icy sphere while Pluto is larger and compositionally different with more nitrogen (N2), methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO) ices which have much lower triple points. These ices on Pluto reach their triple points from 40K to 80K. This means Pluto needs less heat energy for it's ices to expand into fluids and gasses creating pressure. On Earth water is the gas that sits naturally at its triple point and can thus easily transition between all three (solid, liquid, gas) states. |
Nitrogen on Earth is a liquid at 77k but we have more atmospheric pressure than Pluto.
NASA scientists have reported that because of Pluto's seasons, nitrogen can reach its triple point on Pluto even without tidal flex. With a little added pressure and temperature so can CH4 and CO. There is clear evidence something on Pluto has been in a liquid state at some point. |
There are several directions the Pluto/Charon story can go from here so I will pick the one I like most and ride it till I choose another but up till this point these are strongly supported concepts.
We have two bodies creating softened pressurized interiors on each other while compositionally different, both bodies are under extreme stress like a ticking time bomb just waiting for a reason to explode. This video shows liquid nitrogen N2 expanding and exploding. Take notice of two things in the video. |
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Over time Pluto/Charon's orbit's settle, lessening the energy induced but as they settle into tidally locked formations, their pulling force focuses primarily on two spots.
The near and far side of each planet is being tugged on and gravity is trying to now make these two softened bodies into an egg shape. This is called tidal bulge, its why we have two high tides each day. This bulge occurs with both fluids and solids. This is the same effect Pluto has on Charon and vice versa both are being bulged by the other. |
This is an excellent 15 minute video on gyroscopic phenomenon by professor Eric Laithwaite.
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Fast forward to the 20 minute mark to see an interesting effect induced in gyroscopic spinning bodies that are wiggled. Their axis changes from slight wobbles.
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This image is to help in case you don't know where certain features are located on Pluto as I will be using a few named regions soon. I just noticed Piri Planitia is not named, its the basin west of Viking and south of Venera Terra. Please buckle up and hold on to your hats were going down a rabbit hole. In the below image I try to show how there are some impressions or fingerprints on Pluto which are trying to describe how there have been subsurface fluid flows that have migrated around Pluto. |
Some are currently active while others have cooled and sunk inward.
These features could be from natural seasonal cycles or from the flexing that took place between Pluto/Charon. Sputnik Planitia appears to be at the center of the energy release and is currently still hot. Viking Terra is a bulge in the land ice from subsurface pressure currently pushing up. Piri Planitia (western finger) is an extension of Viking Terra but has cooled and sunk creating a basin. The NE finger shows the same basic shape and pattern as Piri Planitia indication it was warmed from below but is now cooled. At the time I created this outline, I was only seeing impacts as possible energy sources for creating these land features. |
The image above and left is an odd area (Venera Terra) where I've outlined in red a terrain that looks like it was a series of massive ice blocks where fluids flowed between them then froze in place.
If you look closely you can see water like channels running between large blocks of smooth ice. This area looks somewhat similar to the mounds and troughs that make up the surface of Sputnik Planitia. |
Saturn's moon Enceladus currently experiences tidal stretching which causes the ice crust to spread apart creating long fractures.
We call these fractures tiger stripes. Subsurface gasses and fluid vents out of these fractures. This is basically how I see Pluto when it had active tidal stretch energy. NASA scientists suggest all the expansion fractures on Pluto are from a subsurface ocean that is freezing and expanding but on Enceladus we see an example of expansion fractures created by tidal flex heat energy not cooling and freezing. |
To the left is the cryovolcano at the center of the spider which is the central point around which pressures grew and finally released.
This process is similar to what we see on Earth at the Hawaiian Islands. As the Earth's Pacific Ocean plate moves over the hot spot under the islands, fluid rock is forced onto the surface. |
The larger image below is without annotations.
All of these features seem to indicate the hot spot that was bulging Pluto also traveled around the planet softening and cracking it as it migrated from one location to the next. When Pluto/Charon locked this softened subsurface material focused on SP and the side facing Charon. |
When New Horizons flew past Pluto it encountered another object within a few months.
This object's name is 1994 Jr1. I call it Junior, Jr1. Junior is red and has some interesting features, NASA scientists wrote a paper on Jr1 (the paper.) excerpt; because the close approach distance is variable, Pluto’s perturbation on JR1 is effectively chaotic. While this could be described as Pluto quasisatellite (a quasi moon) behavior..., |
Neptune corals objects into clusters it creates a wave which objects then ride and perturbs them such that they periodically collide.
This is how Pluto and Charon met they were introduced on the 2:3 resonance dance floor by Neptune. This introduction could have happened a mere 1 billion years ago or much less. There is absolutely no reason why their introduction couldn't have happened recently. |
Hal Levison built a model based on the migration of planets aka the Nice Model showing how long it took Neptune to migrate out to its current orbit.
At about 0.88 billion years Neptune passes Uranus and begins radically influencing the orbits of material in the outer solar system creating the late heavy bombardment. A few million years later it migrated to its current orbital distance of about 30 AU. It would have then had to create the wave or cluster of objects in the 2:3 resonance zone to form the group called Plutinos. Getting this cluster of objects corralled aka shepherded could have easily taken 1 byr from the time our solar system came into existence. |
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So adding an impact to this theory changes the basic premise very little but adds this one caveat.
A red tholin covered object similar to Jr1 hit Charon on it's North Pole at a time when both Pluto and Charon's shared orbit's were settling down but their internal pressures were escalating . Charon was filled with internal pressure like a shaken beer can or bomb while Pluto was gravitationally pulling on Charon and along comes Jr1 delivering a huge smack on the north pole, All three forces could have popped the cork. |
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Here's a cool video on how fast a rapidly expanding gas like propane (similar to nitrogen) spins a ping pong ball. If these gasses were held contained within Charon because of its harder and relatively thicker crust, a hard smack on the north pole could blast the bottom off Charon. Charon's crust is stronger than Pluto's both because of its composition and Charon's smaller size. Even if it wasn't a complete catastrophic loss of the entire southern hemisphere large blocks would have been dislodged. |
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If Charon merely cracked along the diagonal fracture line spilling out fluid, the fluid would have frozen on its way to the surface and mounded up around the diagonal fracture.
Instead we see the entire southern hemisphere smoothed over indicating the entire southern portion was catastrophically disrupted at once. Here's what happens if you fill a six foot balloon with nitrogen as it warms and expands. OK enough fun, back to the plot. |
This Mordor impact added the energy required to initiate this domino effect of Charon blowing shards of crust off it's southern hemisphere, Pluto's gravity helped focus the impact effect onto Pluto. Some fragments were launched into space while others created internal shock waves within Pluto which most heavily fractured the southern portion of SP facing Charon.
Pluto's pent up pressure then released, creating the deep pits by launching more debris into a lower orbit. At some point all this orbiting debris was cleaned up by the few small moons which remain or by Pluto/Charon's gravitational perturbations which ejected the rest. |
It's irrelevant whether the impact at Mordor initiated this event but I like to include it.
Pluto and Charon would have been bulging toward each other at their nearest points and the far sides would experience a slight bulge as well weakening both sides at these points. Pluto's gravity would have pulled Charon's shards directly toward it creating massive disruptions on Pluto's surface facing Charon as we see in this image. Many of the shards would have hit Pluto some would have missed. The shards that missed likely became Hydra and Kerberos launching with enough force to place them into a high orbit. This is why Kerberos' albedo so closely matches Charon's but Nix doesn't. |
These icebergs show how the largest bergs (highest elevation are sitting in the deepest part of SP. While moving northward the large icebergs are ground into medium bergs then as they are beached in the north they become smaller rubble bergs. Below is an elevation map of this area.
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