February 19th 2016
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A polish planet hunting friend suggested I take a new look at Charon and Pluto in a flat splayed out format. Initially, I thought the images were too blurred to add any additional information, but I was wrong.
I was pleased to see that these images support the story (at least part of it) that my previous interpretations portray. On the previous page I suggested an impact occurred on Charon around the 8 O-Clock position which, in turn, sent a shock wave to the opposite side around the 2 O-Clock Position which nearly dislodged a huge plug of ice from off Charon's crust. |
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This impact created a POP opposite to the impact site which can be clearly seen in the previous image. NASA calls this POP zone Argo Chasma. This massive ice block was almost catapulted into space. To see how this happens visit this wikihow site. or watch the above video
In the image above we can only see one edge of the fracture at the POP zone. This fracture has walls that are estimated to be between four and six miles high. I've also outlined how this shock wave fractured the mantle along a diagonal path parallel to the shock wave.
It appears the south western impacts at 8 O-clock cracked Charon's outer shell along a diagonal line around its circumstance separating the top portion of its shell from the bottom.
Below are three views of the POP zone called Argo Chasma by NASA. The circular pattern is very clear.
It appears the south western impacts at 8 O-clock cracked Charon's outer shell along a diagonal line around its circumstance separating the top portion of its shell from the bottom.
Below are three views of the POP zone called Argo Chasma by NASA. The circular pattern is very clear.
Looking at a flat splayed out view of Charon allows us to see beyond the horizon. In this view, we can see the entire shape of Argo Chasma. Below can be seen (outlined in red arrows) the massive ice plug that Charon nearly lost.
This below image shows the round nature of the plug a little better.
Mercury has the largest know impact basin in the solar system its called Caloris basin and its responsible for creating another feature on Mercury called the Weird Terrain which is exactly opposite the impact site.
Mercury Caloris Basin top center
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Caloris impact basin
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Weird Terrain opposite side of Caloris basin
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The Weird Terrain is a jumble of hills, 5-10 km across by up to 2 km high (gradient of up to 50%)
P waves are pressure waves that punch through an object. S waves travel through an object but also ripple along the surface and collided or clap into each other on the opposite side of a sphere. P waves travel faster than the S waves but the end result is that when a planet is smacked hard enough by an object, waves propagate to the other side causing disruptions. This same phenomenon would have taken place on Charon when impacted. Mercury is mostly a core of 70% metal with a crust of silicate rock. Charon is a ball of rock hard ice with some silicate rock dispersed throughout. It wouldn't be anywhere near as difficult for an impactor to disrupt the opposite side of Charon as on Mercury and yet this has occurred on Mercury so its easy to see how it would also occur on Charon. |
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The impacts around the 8 O-Clock area on Charon don't appear to have penetrated as deep as one would expect but I think this is because the rock ice is so hard it tends to break up the impacting objects rather than allowing those objects to break up the surface.
All impacts on the northern hemisphere display similar patterns, jagged impact edges with splattered debris on the surface. Conversely, the southern hemisphere displays totally different patterns when impacted, The southern hemisphere displays impact holes punched into a softer more absorbent material. |
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This infers, in part, that at one time, the southern hemisphere was the same as the northern but since it is now gone with only the remaining frozen fluid, the two halves display different impact patterns as they are now completely different types of hardened surfaces. the North is thick hard water ice, the south thin water ice that once flowed as a fluid.
The impacts that nearly popped Charon's cork sent a shock wave that fractured Charon's outer mantle at an angle identical to the ridge line that makes up the boundary of the missing southern outer shell. The impacts at 8 O-clock cracked Charon diagonally like an egg shell getting cracked on the edge of a bowl prior to prying it apart. Then some time later something catastrophic happened to shatter and dislodge the southern shell.
The below image shows Charon on all sides
The impacts that nearly popped Charon's cork sent a shock wave that fractured Charon's outer mantle at an angle identical to the ridge line that makes up the boundary of the missing southern outer shell. The impacts at 8 O-clock cracked Charon diagonally like an egg shell getting cracked on the edge of a bowl prior to prying it apart. Then some time later something catastrophic happened to shatter and dislodge the southern shell.
The below image shows Charon on all sides
This caused me to ask another logical question, Where would an impact need to occur to pop the bottom hemisphere off Charon? Hmm!! how about a direct hit on the north pole, what would that look like?
The North Pole of Charon has at least three large impact sites
The red spot on Charon's North Pole is called Mordor named after the shadow lands in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Below, I've placed arrows around 3-4 possible large impacts on the north pole of Charon. Because of the thick hard nature of the crust on Charon it could be argued there are only two impacts. (Download Charon image) I keep saying objects travel in groups out here because I keep seeing clusters of impacts. It appears as though each of these impacts were constructed of material with differing composition.
In the below image, the right most object was the smallest and the hardest (it's also the easiest to see),
In the below image, the right most object was the smallest and the hardest (it's also the easiest to see),
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The center object was large and contained large amounts of red material which likely made it more dense than the object that impacted to it's left. The left object while large appears to have been soft enough to not penetrate deep. Imagine three consecutive impacts in fairly rapid succession.
They impacted from left to right, first soft light grayish/reddish object hit, then medium size medium hard reddish object hit, then a smaller hard no red material object hit, in that order. Look at the scene you can see it. these were large impacts so the shock waves would have been massive. Watch this video to see what sound waves can do. |
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One more thing about the below image. Looking back at the previous image with the impact zones around the 8 O-Clock position I noted the ice land is very jagged at the impact site. In this image along the edges of the impacts along the top horizon, you see the same type of jagged edges. Typically on earth as on Pluto impacts leave a more circular depression. Charon is smaller its shell holds more rigid and tightly together.
Curiously these North Pole impacts on Charon remind me of the four Pluto/Charon moons Hydra is gray and large like the first impact site, Nix is red and large like the second impact site while Kerberos and Styx are small (6 mile) rocks and likely hard like the third impact site. What are the odds this pattern would repeat? The small satellites (moons) are similar in size and composition to the impact craters we see on the north pole of Charon. This suggest the objects that impacted Charon's north pole could be part of the same group of objects that are now moons orbiting Pluto/Charon.
Curiously these North Pole impacts on Charon remind me of the four Pluto/Charon moons Hydra is gray and large like the first impact site, Nix is red and large like the second impact site while Kerberos and Styx are small (6 mile) rocks and likely hard like the third impact site. What are the odds this pattern would repeat? The small satellites (moons) are similar in size and composition to the impact craters we see on the north pole of Charon. This suggest the objects that impacted Charon's north pole could be part of the same group of objects that are now moons orbiting Pluto/Charon.
Updated:
After originally creating the image below, I noticed another impact which I've outlined with pink arrows. The pink arrow lined impact object was more dense than the object that created the "First Impact" site. The pink arrow site is deep with walls around its edges. The site labeled "First Impact" may have been from an object that was composed of softer material that sprayed the area in dust more than it made a depression. Mordor's red impact material along with Nix (red ice moon) seem to infer this red stuff does not need to develop within an atmosphere. I'm guessing sublimation of the object's ice leaves red dust/tholin behind.
NASA implies Charon's north pole is red because it has cold trapped material from Pluto's atmosphere and by implication since Charon doesn't have an atmosphere the red tholin is not of Charon. There are many objects in the Kuiper Belt that are red and don't have an atmosphere so I'm not sure why they are suggesting this needs to be a requirement.
After originally creating the image below, I noticed another impact which I've outlined with pink arrows. The pink arrow lined impact object was more dense than the object that created the "First Impact" site. The pink arrow site is deep with walls around its edges. The site labeled "First Impact" may have been from an object that was composed of softer material that sprayed the area in dust more than it made a depression. Mordor's red impact material along with Nix (red ice moon) seem to infer this red stuff does not need to develop within an atmosphere. I'm guessing sublimation of the object's ice leaves red dust/tholin behind.
NASA implies Charon's north pole is red because it has cold trapped material from Pluto's atmosphere and by implication since Charon doesn't have an atmosphere the red tholin is not of Charon. There are many objects in the Kuiper Belt that are red and don't have an atmosphere so I'm not sure why they are suggesting this needs to be a requirement.
Meet Mordor, the red circle on Charon's north pole.
Download a high res image of Charon and see these impacts for yourself.
Update: April 17, 2016
As of March 21st 2016 NASA still holds to their original interpretation of the red stuff on the north pole of Charon as having formed from a process called cold trapping that placed tholin here on Charon from Pluto, furthermore, NASA scientists claim there are no impacts on the North Pole of Charon. NO IMPACTS! I have located an elevation map of Charon and it is easy to see the elevation drop at the north pole where a red object hit. Mordor is a depression not just red tholin sitting around on the surface.
Update: April 17, 2016
As of March 21st 2016 NASA still holds to their original interpretation of the red stuff on the north pole of Charon as having formed from a process called cold trapping that placed tholin here on Charon from Pluto, furthermore, NASA scientists claim there are no impacts on the North Pole of Charon. NO IMPACTS! I have located an elevation map of Charon and it is easy to see the elevation drop at the north pole where a red object hit. Mordor is a depression not just red tholin sitting around on the surface.
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Cold trapping is theoretically the process of Charon capturing tholin from Pluto's atmosphere at its poles and according to NASA if it exist on the north pole of Charon it should also exist on the south pole but there is no evidence of tholin around the south pole.
Here's a video of this statement fast forward from 1:09:15 to 1:10:55. Their reasoning for the absence of tholin on the south pole is that the south pole is in permanent darkness but as you can see in the above image the tholin on the north extends far out from the north pole and would do likewise on the south pole and yet no evidence of this exist. |
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Imagine a chicken egg. While the shell is thin, its small size and shape makes it very difficult to crush when even pressure is applied around its circumference, If that same egg is enlarged then the thickness of the walls must increase in order for the egg to stand up to the same amount of relative pressure. The ostrich egg is a good example of that, thick shell for a large egg. This is why, I think, Charon maintains these jagged edges when impacted by large objects. Charon's shell is at least 4 to 6 miles thick which when wrapped around a small sphere becomes rigidly tough. If Pluto's crust is also 6 miles thick then it would absorb objects with less resistance. due to its larger circumference.
In this top down view of Charon's north pole one large red tholin impact pattern is seen as well as additional smaller impacts within the tholin zone. If this tholin were dispersed from Pluto's atmosphere it would distribute evenly outward from the pole and accumulate more heavily in the deepest parts of the surface. Look at the elevation map above, the purple zone is the deepest and in the below image there is little tholin accumulated in this region as the tholin at this location is ejecta from an impact.
In this top down view of Charon's north pole one large red tholin impact pattern is seen as well as additional smaller impacts within the tholin zone. If this tholin were dispersed from Pluto's atmosphere it would distribute evenly outward from the pole and accumulate more heavily in the deepest parts of the surface. Look at the elevation map above, the purple zone is the deepest and in the below image there is little tholin accumulated in this region as the tholin at this location is ejecta from an impact.
Pluto has other ices which are softer than water ice seen all over.
Pluto tends to show circular impressions when impacted similar to Charon's southern hemisphere, whereas, Charon's north hemisphere features more jagged angular impressions.
Lets consider what would happen if the bottom half of Charon's crust was fragmented or partially broken and dislodged by several large impacts on its north pole.
Below is an image of Pluto splayed open and flat (download here).
The blue circles are disruptions in the even distribution of the dark material. I don't know if they occurred via impacts or some other force
Flat side up
At the center of the above image is Sputnik Planitia (SP). The left and right most edges of the image are on the opposite side of SP and are facing directly at Charon. Along the equatorial region is where we see the highest concentration of red stuff (dark black areas in this image). I've drawn two red horizontal lines to highlight this region. At the outer edges of this image opposite SP, can be seen regular angular shapes indicating Pluto was pummeled by objects that disrupted the long dormant tholin covered surface and stirred up white ice from below. These look very much like impacts
Charon was hit by large objects which catastrophically disrupted the entire southern hemisphere. The debris from this impact collided with Pluto primarily at the side facing Charon, which is what we see here. With large objects like this impacting Pluto on one side, shock waves would have reverberated to the other side at SP. This could at least explain all the fractures in the sub surface land ice at SP, This process would also likely generate enough heat energy to warm the nitrogen to a viscous state causing the flowing fluid at SP. Add a few more stray impacts along Pluto's equatorial zone including impacts at SP and we have active geological processes occurring from impacts.
Why is SP still active and in a fluid state while Charon's southern hemisphere is hardened if they both occurred at the same time?
Small planets cool rapidly and can't retain their heat since they have a lot of surface area compared to their mass. These two planets are also compositionally different.
Charon was hit by large objects which catastrophically disrupted the entire southern hemisphere. The debris from this impact collided with Pluto primarily at the side facing Charon, which is what we see here. With large objects like this impacting Pluto on one side, shock waves would have reverberated to the other side at SP. This could at least explain all the fractures in the sub surface land ice at SP, This process would also likely generate enough heat energy to warm the nitrogen to a viscous state causing the flowing fluid at SP. Add a few more stray impacts along Pluto's equatorial zone including impacts at SP and we have active geological processes occurring from impacts.
Why is SP still active and in a fluid state while Charon's southern hemisphere is hardened if they both occurred at the same time?
Small planets cool rapidly and can't retain their heat since they have a lot of surface area compared to their mass. These two planets are also compositionally different.
Bulls Eye
Look at the below image where you can see all sides of Pluto, the 12 O-Clock picture of Pluto shows striking (pun intended) evidence of massive disturbances on Pluto's side facing Charon and directly opposite SP.
The most striking image to me is the one at 12 O-Clock. The disturbances look very jumbled, irregular and angular as one would expect from shards of ice knocked off Charon's surface crust. There is one impact that looks different than all the others. It looks like a Bull's Eye and NASA calls it Simonelli Crater. It is a classical shape for an impact. It's circular with an outer and inner rim. I am suggesting this Simonelli crater impact was not part of the objects from Charon.
