September 20th, 2017
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I seem to be flip flopping on this issue.
Early on I thought the smooth area (red & yellow lines) along the southern portion of Sputnik Planitia (SP) meant that it was deep. Then I started to visualize the larger northern part of SP as a caldera which conjured up images of intense heat so I abandoned the idea this "V" shaped smooth zone was deep. Now because of my wobble page, I'm returning to my original thought. |
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A circular 12 degree radius around 0 latitude and 180 longitude appears to be the focus of some Milankovitch tidal flex bulge energy. As Pluto/Charon wobble 24 degrees through the Milankovitch cycle each imparts a gravitational torque on the other. A tidal bulge on each planet is rotated around this zone. This would induce some additional form of energy into Pluto. The right half of the octagon split by the 180 degree line is mostly smooth while the left side displays a number of variations in features. This was the highest resolution image I could obtain with latitude and longitude lines. From this image, I created a 12 degree radius octagon (circle) around 0 lat and 180 lon. I then used land marks from this image to insert my lat lon lines on a much higher resolution image. |
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Creating a uniform yellow octagon around the central point in the below image doesn't seem to match the vertical lines of the image above. I think this is because the above image is from a flat map while the below image is of a curved spherical image. This makes the vertical lines bulge outward (blue lines in below image). The blue lines represent the extended zone of the circle which more closely matches landmarks on the above image. |
The right side of the octagon exhibits more uniformity than the left side. I will primarily try to simply point out features for what they appear to be.
There seems to be five basic features that can potentially indicate depth within the ocean of N2.
Lets start with the top right quadrant of my Milankovitch cycle circle.
There seems to be five basic features that can potentially indicate depth within the ocean of N2.
- Eroded Ice boulders from glacial water falls creating troughs
- Tholin clusters creating troughs
- The existence or absence of troughs
- Two mile high iceberg floating mountains
- Fluids bubbling up through old ice crust
Lets start with the top right quadrant of my Milankovitch cycle circle.
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If you look closely at this section you can see how fluids flow from a higher elevation down into the Sputnik Planitia (SP) basin very similar just slower to what we see at places like Niagara Falls. Circular ring patterns are carved out of the basin walls leaving piles of rocky ice boulders lining the ring's edge. Further toward the center of SP, these raised boulder rings dissipate but also show how the fluid's depth is not so deep as to completely swallow the raised boulder/mountains. 
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As we migrate deeper into SP, the raised rocky rims begin to melt into troughs not only following the troughs but creating them forming polygonal cells with raised central mounds and troughs along their edges.
To explain it in terms of Niagara Falls, fluid spilling off the raised uplands/wetlands in eastern Tombaugh Regio is eroding the land at the base of the falls. As the fluid undercuts the base, the top ledge of the fall's collapse, the land erodes upstream leaving behind a boulder field. But this scene differs immensely from Niagara in that the boulders at Niagara sink in water, whereas, the boulders at SP float. |
The N2 fluid running over the edges of the cliff face at SP is eroding backwards upstream or eastwards receding into the uplands as Pluto's crustal skin slips NW. While, trying to understand these polygonal cells bounded by troughs, I kept asking myself is there a counterpart to these polygonal cells elsewhere on Pluto?
Venera Terra seemed to be the most closely matched pattern to what is seen at SP.
Venera Terra seemed to be the most closely matched pattern to what is seen at SP.
Venera Terra basically looks like a fossilized frozen version of the surface of SP. If we extend the analogy a bit further to something on earth we get floating ice sheets.
I've shown this image before but consider the implications when joined with Venera Terra in turn joined with the polygonal cells at SP.
Think of Sputnik Planitia's mounds with trough's as water ice sheets floating on an ocean of nitrogen. The ice sheets have cracks (troughs), smaller ice rubble is crushed into the channels (cracks, troughs) between the ice sheets. the central mound is the thickest part of the ice sheet the lower troughs are the softer edges.
I've shown this image before but consider the implications when joined with Venera Terra in turn joined with the polygonal cells at SP.
Think of Sputnik Planitia's mounds with trough's as water ice sheets floating on an ocean of nitrogen. The ice sheets have cracks (troughs), smaller ice rubble is crushed into the channels (cracks, troughs) between the ice sheets. the central mound is the thickest part of the ice sheet the lower troughs are the softer edges.
What is the coldest part of the ice sheets in the above image?
The center.
What's the warmest part?
The edges where the water creates dark troughs.
The center part of each floating ice sheet is raised and thicker compared to its dissolving thinner edges exactly like the polygonal cells of SP which have raised central mounds bounded by lower level troughs.
The center.
What's the warmest part?
The edges where the water creates dark troughs.
The center part of each floating ice sheet is raised and thicker compared to its dissolving thinner edges exactly like the polygonal cells of SP which have raised central mounds bounded by lower level troughs.
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The top left quadrant of my Milankovitch octagon. Tholin washes off the mountain sized water iceberg blocks creating meandering snake like lines in the N2 glacier which blend with and form into the troughs of the polygonal mounds. At some locations the red tholin appears to have scrunched into elevated ridge lines extending above the nitrogen ice while at other locations the tholin appears to be a subsurface feature with the nitrogen's surface tension keeping it from closing in on and covering the red tholin. The tholin appears run down into the warmer cracks between the ice sheets on the western edge of SP while the eroded boulders seem to align inside the troughs along the eastern edge. Below is a closeup of one portion of this section |
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Closer still with red tholin dissolving off cliff faces and scrunched into trough lines. These images show one clear aspect of tholin, it runs like a slow moving tar slipping off the raised mountain peeks accumulating into lines which align with the edges of the ice sheets aka troughs.
Closeup of sublimation cups exposing tholin below the surface in troughs.
Sublimation cups expose below surface tholin indicating these troughs are warmer than the central portion of the cell.
I Just noticed something interesting in the below image. Immediately off to the right edge of the red/white mountain icebergs are dark blotches looking like large finger prints or a dogs paw pads.
These finger print looking blotches are rock hard water ice sheets covered with tholin with a thin veneer of nitrogen methane snow on top. The edges (cracks) where the ice sheet makes contact with the nitrogen fluid, within which it floats, display's additional sublimation cups indicating more heat exists along the edges. The entire surface of the ice sheet is covered in tholin but the center is higher than the edges. The edges of the water ice sheets are where the tholin slides off and accumulates into the warmer nitrogen fluid between the sheets.
This is the most significant image on this page, understand this image and you will understand the majority of the processes taking place on SP
This is the most significant image on this page, understand this image and you will understand the majority of the processes taking place on SP
The polygonal cells appear to be water ice sheets covered with and floating within a sea of nitrogen methane.
Below two images show on Earth how these ice sheet break ups nearer massive mountain sized icebergs have smaller broken sheets closer to the iceberg but as we travel outward from the iceberg the sheets get larger just like we see at SP. This also demonstrates how some ice becomes icebergs while some becomes ice sheets.
Below two images show on Earth how these ice sheet break ups nearer massive mountain sized icebergs have smaller broken sheets closer to the iceberg but as we travel outward from the iceberg the sheets get larger just like we see at SP. This also demonstrates how some ice becomes icebergs while some becomes ice sheets.
Smaller broken ice sheets near the icebergs, larger ice sheets further away.
In the below image you can see one large ice sheet being cracked by subsurface heat creating what we call troughs while smaller ice boulders are getting squished between two large ice sheets. The junction (cracks) where the ice sheets bump into each other is what scientists are referring to as troughs.
Ice sheets form channels (troughs) along which ground ice rubble travels.
Quote from,
The Pluto System After New Horizons
Buoyant plumes of warmer ice rise in the centers of the cells while cooler ice sinks along their peripheries, with an overturning timescale of 105 to 106 years (McKinnon et al. 2016).
The Pluto System After New Horizons
Buoyant plumes of warmer ice rise in the centers of the cells while cooler ice sinks along their peripheries, with an overturning timescale of 105 to 106 years (McKinnon et al. 2016).
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NASA scientists present the surface of SP like below, using heat or convection currents to explain the raised center of the polygonal cells and the troughs are the cooled portion of the convection currents dropping downward. Initially NASA described these polygonal cells as being similar to lava Lamps. Once NASA impregnates your mind with these false images, it can be difficult to see what is truly taking place. It took me over a year to shake this image out of my head so I could understand what I was actually seeing.
credit James Keane - note how red (hot) lines rise to center of mounds and blue/green (cold) color's fall along the troughs.
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My view is opposite to that of NASA, based on the location, frequency and size of sublimation cups, as well as, comparing the polygonal cells on SP to those at Venera Terra and those of Venera Terra to ice sheets on Earth. |
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This Keane drawing of a Sean O'Hara lecture sums up my concept of what is taking place at Sputnik Planitia (SP). Slabs of bedrock ice are eroded off the edges, they slip into the SP basin and drift deeper into this sea of nitrogen fluid ice. The weakness with this idea is that the polygonal cells are largest toward the center of SP. This begs the question, how do smaller cells grow into larger ones as they migrate deeper into the the nitrogen fluid. |
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Below is a James Keane drawing of a talk by Samuel Howell on Extensional Terrain Formation on Icy Satellites.
Sam says "This isn't about what you can learn by sending fancy spaceships around... this is more about what you can learn by playing with MATLAB in your office."
Apparently Sam was able to model various scenarios under which the terrain of Europa and Ganymede's ices form extensional faults (troughs?). The interesting thing to me is how the heat driven from below the surface, rises up to and creates the fault line or fracture line the area where (the ice is lowest in the center of the fault while bounded by raised ridges) but on Pluto the rising subsurface heat somehow does the exact opposite.
Sam says "This isn't about what you can learn by sending fancy spaceships around... this is more about what you can learn by playing with MATLAB in your office."
Apparently Sam was able to model various scenarios under which the terrain of Europa and Ganymede's ices form extensional faults (troughs?). The interesting thing to me is how the heat driven from below the surface, rises up to and creates the fault line or fracture line the area where (the ice is lowest in the center of the fault while bounded by raised ridges) but on Pluto the rising subsurface heat somehow does the exact opposite.
The most important thing to consider when determining a heat signature on the surface of SP is the aggressiveness of evaporation aka sublimation. The nitrogen bubbling (sublimation cups) taking place at the edges of the cells (along the troughs) is far more aggressive than at the center. If NASA's convection scenario were taking place we would see more sublimation cups at the central portion of the polygonal cells not along the edges.
What scientists recognize about the sublimation pits (sub cups) is that they are more numerous near the edges of what they call "convection cells". On my Cracks page 6 and Pits page 12, I explain how these polygonal cells are more similar to ice sheets floating in a warmerish fluid of N2 rather than convection cells. The more aggressive bubbling or larger, deeper more numerous volume of sub cups along the edges of the cells is due to more relative heat along the edges.
NASA scientists are sold on their convection cell theory so to them the heat is naturally welling up in the middle of the cell causing the ice to bulge up in the middle but somehow this additional heat at the center does not create evaporation type sub cups. With that thought process in place they had to come up with an explanation as to why there is more activity along the edges where its supposed to be cooler (fewer sub cups).
According to the below Keane notes scientist Peter Bohler explain it by a "conveyor belt model" which is supposed to demonstrate the viscous flow rates of the ices. viscosity is the measure of a fluid's resistance to flow. As the flow slips out and away from the center of the cell the cups increase in size due to the amount of time involved in conveying the cups from center to edge.
Now for the rub.
Their own figures are nine orders of magnitude off from what lab experiments show is possible.
Lab experiments show N2 nitrogen ice flow (viscosity) at ten to the tenth power over a time interval.
While their conveyor belt theory postulates the flow to be ten to the nineteenth power over time.
NASA scientists are sold on their convection cell theory so to them the heat is naturally welling up in the middle of the cell causing the ice to bulge up in the middle but somehow this additional heat at the center does not create evaporation type sub cups. With that thought process in place they had to come up with an explanation as to why there is more activity along the edges where its supposed to be cooler (fewer sub cups).
According to the below Keane notes scientist Peter Bohler explain it by a "conveyor belt model" which is supposed to demonstrate the viscous flow rates of the ices. viscosity is the measure of a fluid's resistance to flow. As the flow slips out and away from the center of the cell the cups increase in size due to the amount of time involved in conveying the cups from center to edge.
Now for the rub.
Their own figures are nine orders of magnitude off from what lab experiments show is possible.
Lab experiments show N2 nitrogen ice flow (viscosity) at ten to the tenth power over a time interval.
While their conveyor belt theory postulates the flow to be ten to the nineteenth power over time.
James Keane DPS17 (2)
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Their speculative hypothesis is NINE ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE off from experimental reality, that's a billion times off. A BILLION TIMES!!! This is how far out on a limb they are with this convection cell/conveyor belt concept. But I'm supposed to believe this hypothesis, no matter how bizarre, simply because they are scientists and they postulated it. I'm supposed to believe this hypothesis even though its a BILLION times off from experimental reality. |
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This is the extent to which scientists are willing to go to sell their Pluto narrative. I used to think some of my concepts were a bit difficult to accept but the degree of faith required to believe this conveyor belt hypothesis is inconceivable. Richard Feynman said "Progress in science comes when experiments contradict theory!" What he was saying is that when experiments prove theory wrong then progress is made. The problem for this conveyor belt theory is that it contradicts our ability to test or experimentally prove its validity and yet much of the speculative hypotheses put forward about Pluto are presented as a suggested hypothesis then treated as fact simply because people keep regurgitating the same comments. NASA scientists suggested a lava lamp convection current hypothesis and now it is completely accepted as fact even though observations don't support this concept. |
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On page 6, I show how cracks in the ices of Saturn's moon Enceladus are where heat escapes creating the Tiger Stripes near the south pole.
Surface of Neptune's moon Triton
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Sputnik Planitia's surface looks nearly identical in spots to Triton's surface. The troughs display a zipper look, where the edges are raised while the center is dotted with tiny sub cups. |
<<<<<<<<< Neptune's moon Triton, Pluto's twin showing cracks looking similar to Enceladus and the surface of Sputnik Planitia. This is the place where heat escaped from below the surface. 
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On my Pits page 12 I show how the bubbling sublimation pits near the edge of the troughs are more numerous, larger and aggressive than in the center of the cells further indicating the troughs are hotter than the polygonal cell center.
The reason the center of the polygonal cells are raised compared to the troughs has nothing to do with convection but rather the water ice sheets, as on Earth, are colder more solid in the center and somewhat melted along their edges where it's warmest identical to what we see at Venera Terra.
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Take another look. Ice sheets on Earth with raised central cellular mounds and warmer water along their edges creating polygonal cells with troughs. Obviously the warmest part of these ice sheet cells is along the edges not the center. |
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Venera Terra showing ice sheets frozen into polygonal cells with warmer fluid channels between the cells subsequently creating troughs. Venera Terra looks exactly like an older frozen fossilized version of SP. Venera Terra displays elevated mounds of polygonal cellular ice sheets with warm fluid troughs along the edges and a smooth plane to the south. |
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This is a western edge section of SP rotated 90 degrees right to give a similar visual orientation as seen at Venera Terra. Looks like ice sheets with raised centers and softer warmer fluid between the cells creating the troughs. The smooth surface without troughs is comparable to a warmer ocean without the ice sheet cells. Except for the impact craters at Venera Terra these two scenes look very similar. |
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The thing I hadn't thought about previously is that on Earth, silicate rock molten or otherwise is our crust and its denser than water so break off a crustal piece of land rock and it sinks. On Pluto the crustal surface is rock hard water ice which floats on nitrogen. Break off a piece of Pluto's crust into an ocean of nitrogen and it floats it doesn't sink completely. All those polygonal cellular mounds may be chunks of crustal (bedrock) ice that's floating on a glacial sea of nitrogen similar to ice sheets on Earth.
These ice sheets could actually be icebergs that simply flopped over because they were top heavy. If the N2 ocean is deep enough and the icebergs top heavy enough they would topple over. When viewing these cellular mounds, we may simply be looking at the bottom surface of flopped over icebergs.
These floating crustal sheets of ice are covered in nitrogen as it is the atmospheric gas that becomes a fog mixed with methane that snows down on top of the floating water ice sheets making it look like convection cells of boiling nitrogen but are instead simply floating land ice sheet blocks covered in the atmospherically raining or snowing gasses. The deeper into SP the ice sheets float, the smoother and larger they appear.
These ice sheets could actually be icebergs that simply flopped over because they were top heavy. If the N2 ocean is deep enough and the icebergs top heavy enough they would topple over. When viewing these cellular mounds, we may simply be looking at the bottom surface of flopped over icebergs.
These floating crustal sheets of ice are covered in nitrogen as it is the atmospheric gas that becomes a fog mixed with methane that snows down on top of the floating water ice sheets making it look like convection cells of boiling nitrogen but are instead simply floating land ice sheet blocks covered in the atmospherically raining or snowing gasses. The deeper into SP the ice sheets float, the smoother and larger they appear.
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I suppose then, I no longer see the polygonal cells as a volcano's caldera but there are similarities.
Instead, the polygonal cells at SP are more like an ice sheet breakup floating on an ocean of N2. In either case subsurface heat is required. On Earth, seasonal changes cause ice sheet breakups and seasonal changes on Pluto probably play a large role in creating this Pluto ice sheet breakup as well. |
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Near the southwestern quadrant of my axial wobble formed tidal bulge circle there is a crater filling with nitrogen from below the surface. |
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The N2 is not spilling over the crater lip it is pushing up from below just like we see at Elliot and Bread Slice craters this equals subsurface N2 pressure. You can also see how the N2 is moving diagonally to the NE in this image with a somewhat aggressive nature and smooth surface. This all points to deep subsurface material under the red tholin covered old cratered rock hard land ice pushing upwards and outward into the shallower less active SP. |
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Below the surface, nitrogen is expanding, its under pressure its most active in this area but it can break through and crack the land's bedrock water ice at any weak location.
Earth's counterpart to this crater would be something like hot springs where warm or even hot pools of water bubble up from below ground. The large smooth "V" shaped pit in the southern section of SP is most likely caused by a large hot spot. One could argue that it is one vast ice sheet indicating it is a cold spot but if that were the case there would be evidence of cratering. |
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There are no impacts on SP so it is (generally speaking) a young overturned warmer surface. The north portion has large ice sheets the south appears to be largely devoid of these sheets so I conclude the V pit is deep.
Download this high resolution image of Pluto and take a close look at this stuff for yourself.
Call me a flopper but I think I was correct when I first saw this area as deep. My Wobble page 78 explains one credible method behind the engine that drives the fluid state of the nitrogen at Sputnik Planitia.
Download this high resolution image of Pluto and take a close look at this stuff for yourself.
Call me a flopper but I think I was correct when I first saw this area as deep. My Wobble page 78 explains one credible method behind the engine that drives the fluid state of the nitrogen at Sputnik Planitia.
