I wonder if they can detect isotope ratios from an analysis of water ice or atmosphere from Pluto and Charon. That could be interesting
Sent from my iPhone > On 01 Feb 2016, at 22:27, Axil Axil <janap...@gmail.com> wrote: > > PLUTO’S MOON CHARON SHOWS FRACTURED SURFACE, SIGNS OF RECENT ACTIVITY > > A massive canyon borders a relatively crater-free plane. > > by John Timmer - Oct 2, 2015 3:10pm EDT > ShareTweetEmail > The latest photos to come beaming down from New Horizons aren't focused on > Pluto; instead, they target the dwarf planet's largest moon, Charon. Charon > is the largest moon relative to its planet in the entire Solar System, but > that still means it's quite small, at about 1,200 kilometers across. So it's > even less likely than Pluto to have retained enough heat to be geologically > active. > > And that's not just Ars saying that. Ross Beyer of NASA Ames Research Center > was quoted in a statement as saying, “We thought the probability of seeing > such interesting features on this satellite of a world at the far edge of our > Solar System was low.” > > > > But Charon had a number of significant surprises in store. Chief among them: > a canyon/fracture system that stretches across the entire face of the moon > and presumably extends to the far side. That means it's easily in excess of > 1,200km long. NASA says that makes the system over four times as long as the > Grand Canyon, and it's twice as deep in spots. "It looks like the entire > crust of Charon has been split open,” said John Spencer of the Southwest > Research Institute. > > South of the fracture, the terrain becomes relatively crater-poor, indicating > a recent remodeling of the surface there. That in turn implies some source of > internal heat in Charon, just as there appears to be in Pluto. The nature of > that source is undoubtedly the subject of intense speculation among planetary > scientists. > > Higher resolution images of Charon, along with data on its composition, are > still sitting onboard New Horizons. So a clearer picture of the body will > quite literally emerge later this year or early next. > > Listing image by NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
