RSR's List of Problems with Solar System Formation

User Name

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The driving forces behind geological reworking require proximity to a large neighboring body or deformation from the spherical for the body that is active.

Pluto is a long way from anything that could generate geological processes on it.

However, if it formed recently — as the evidence indicates — the "surprises" facing the evolutionists all but disappear.

"From what we know of the heat flow coming from interior, there's no reason that this stuff cannot be going on today," said New Horizons' Bill McKinnon (source).
 

Desert Reign

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Actually I was going somewhere with that and it has everything to do with the topic. I'll go ahead and answer the question myself.

Mercury is covered with craters for a number of reasons, primarily: 1) Mercury's surface is solid rock; 2) It has been geologically inactive for aeons, hence no volcanoes or geysers to spew out material that would fill in craters; 3) It has almost no atmosphere, hence no weathering of the rocky craters (although the surface is subjected to space weathering).

Pluto, by contrast, is not solid rock. It is covered in a layer which is primarily composed of ice and includes frozen nitrogen and methane. Strong evidence of geologic activity exists, including cryovolcanoes that would help to fill in and cover craters on the planet's surface. Its atmosphere is slight, but it does have one. These facts explain why Pluto is not covered with craters, and except for the atmosphere, they also apply to Charon, the largest of Pluto's moons. So the fact that Pluto and Charon are not covered in craters is not evidence of young age.

If the surface is made of ice, is it possible that asteroids hitting would melt the ice and then it just levels itself out before freezing over again?

Just wondering.
 

gcthomas

New member
Here in an Arxiv.org paper discussing predictions for the New Horizons pass, made in January.

Possible scenarios that the New Horizons spacecraft may find in its close encounter with Pluto

Pluto and its moon Charon have trapped rotation, i.e., both bodies show each other the same hemisphere. On the other hand the orbit of Charon is circular (and therefore so is Pluto’s orbit around their common centre of mass) (Buie et al., 2012). For these two conditions it is not expected that there is an exchange of energy, via tides, between the two bodies. However, solar gravity force modifies this view since Charon may be in conjunction, in opposition, square and all intermediate positions with respect the Sun, thus both bodies will exert on Pluto a continu ous changing tidal force that implies a continuous, and periodic, deformation of Pluto’s body (and of course Charon’s body). This continuous exchange of energy in tidal forces produces heat due to dissipation of tidal energy. The heat flow may manifest its elf in cryo -*‐ volcanic activity on the surfaces of both bodies, or in the presence of a molten layer in their interior, or both


http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.07311

Tidal heating by the Sun is possible to to interactions with Charon's gravity.
 

User Name

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If the surface is made of ice, is it possible that asteroids hitting would melt the ice and then it just levels itself out before freezing over again?

Just wondering.

Meteor impacts, by themselves, are not likely to generate much heat on Pluto's surface. On the surface of Pluto the ice is frozen nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane. Nitrogen may even be liquid below the surface, where it is not as cold. Water ice is thought to exist under the surface, but unlike water ice, frozen nitrogen is able to flow (albeit slowly):

nh_04_mckinnon_02c.jpg

These flows are able to fill in and cover craters on the surface:

nh_04_mckinnon_03c.jpg
 

gcthomas

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There could also be a significant amount of radioactive isotopes with Pluto's core, providing extra heat. Also, we don't really know how ice behaves at such low temperatures, so there could be a simple materials answer to the surface reworking.
 

Stripe

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Ah, User Name. The guy who likes to post random links as if they were contributing to the conversation.
 

User Name

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Ah, User Name. The guy who likes to post random links as if they were contributing to the conversation.

Actually, the links I've posted pertain directly to the conversation discussed in the OP. Feel free to ask questions, I'll be happy to answer them.
 

Stripe

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Actually, the links I've posted pertain directly to the conversation discussed in the OP. Feel free to ask questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

We should ask you questions? :darwinsm:

How about the myriad of issues that have been raised in this thread that you've actively ignored?

Get to those. :up:
 

User Name

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Just a few months ago, the International Astronomical Union used an image of Pluto (right) that represents the expectations of secular astronomers depicting a heavily cratered body grimy from sweeping up billions of years of space dust. Again though, the predictions of old-earth astronomy failed.

On the contrary, Pluto is heavily cratered:

220416_plutocraters_2.jpg

PC_Crater_Comparison.jpg


A number of other craters and features have been covered by icy flows of nitrogen.
 
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