The New Horizons spacecraft's encounter with the cold classical Kuiper Belt object (486958) Arrokoth (provisional designation 2014 MU
) revealed a contact-binary planetesimal. We investigated how ...Arrokoth formed and found that it is the product of a gentle, low-speed merger in the early Solar System. Its two lenticular lobes suggest low-velocity accumulation of numerous smaller planetesimals within a gravitationally collapsing cloud of solid particles. The geometric alignment of the lobes indicates that they were a co-orbiting binary that experienced angular momentum loss and subsequent merger, possibly because of dynamical friction and collisions within the cloud or later gas drag. Arrokoth's contact-binary shape was preserved by the benign dynamical and collisional environment of the cold classical Kuiper Belt and therefore informs the accretion processes that operated in the early Solar System.
The flyby of Pluto and Charon by the New Horizons spacecraft provided high-resolution images of cratered surfaces embedded in the Kuiper belt, an extensive region of bodies orbiting beyond Neptune. ...Impact craters on Pluto and Charon were formed by collisions with other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) with diameters from ~40 kilometers to ~300 meters, smaller than most KBOs observed directly by telescopes. We find a relative paucity of small craters ≲13 kilometers in diameter, which cannot be explained solely by geological resurfacing. This implies a deficit of small KBOs (≲1 to 2 kilometers in diameter). Some surfaces on Pluto and Charon are likely ≳4 billion years old, thus their crater records provide information on the size-frequency distribution of KBOs in the early Solar System.
Jets of water ice from surface fractures near the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus produce a plume of gas and particles. The source of the jets may be a liquid water region under the ice ...shell-as suggested most recently by the discovery of salts in E-ring particles derived from the plume-or warm ice that is heated, causing dissociation of clathrate hydrates. Here we report that ammonia is present in the plume, along with various organic compounds, deuterium and, very probably, (40)Ar. The presence of ammonia provides strong evidence for the existence of at least some liquid water, given that temperatures in excess of 180K have been measured near the fractures from which the jets emanate. We conclude, from the overall composition of the material, that the plume derives from both a liquid reservoir (or from ice that in recent geological time has been in contact with such a reservoir) as well as from degassing, volatile-charged ice.
We report the detection of ammonia (NH
) on Pluto's surface in spectral images obtained with the New Horizons spacecraft that show absorption bands at 1.65 and 2.2 μm. The ammonia signature is ...spatially coincident with a region of past extensional tectonic activity (Virgil Fossae) where the presence of H
O ice is prominent. Ammonia in liquid water profoundly depresses the freezing point of the mixture. Ammoniated ices are believed to be geologically short lived when irradiated with ultraviolet photons or charged particles. Thus, the presence of NH
on a planetary surface is indicative of a relatively recent deposition or possibly through exposure by some geological process. In the present case, the areal distribution is more suggestive of cryovolcanic emplacement, however, adding to the evidence for ongoing geological activity on Pluto and the possible presence of liquid water at depth today.
The New Horizons mission has provided resolved measurements of Pluto's moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. All four are small, with equivalent spherical diameters of approx.40 kilometers for Nix ...and Hydra and approx. 10 kilometers for Styx and Kerberos. They are also highly elongated, with maximum to minimum axis ratios of approx. 2. All four moons have high albedos (approx.50 to 90%) suggestive of a water-ice surface composition. Crater densities on Nix and Hydra imply surface ages of at least 4 billion years. The small moons rotate much faster than synchronous, with rotational poles clustered nearly orthogonal to the common pole directions of Pluto and Charon. These results reinforce the hypothesis that the small moons formed in the aftermath of a collision that produced the Pluto-Charon binary.
The deep nitrogen-covered basin on Pluto, informally named Sputnik Planitia, is located very close to the longitude of Pluto's tidal axis and may be an impact feature, by analogy with other large ...basins in the Solar System. Reorientation of Sputnik Planitia arising from tidal and rotational torques can explain the basin's present-day location, but requires the feature to be a positive gravity anomaly, despite its negative topography. Here we argue that if Sputnik Planitia did indeed form as a result of an impact and if Pluto possesses a subsurface ocean, the required positive gravity anomaly would naturally result because of shell thinning and ocean uplift, followed by later modest nitrogen deposition. Without a subsurface ocean, a positive gravity anomaly requires an implausibly thick nitrogen layer (exceeding 40 kilometres). To prolong the lifetime of such a subsurface ocean to the present day and to maintain ocean uplift, a rigid, conductive water-ice shell is required. Because nitrogen deposition is latitude-dependent, nitrogen loading and reorientation may have exhibited complex feedbacks.
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Craters are probes of planetary surface and interior properties. Here we measure depths, widths, and spacing of circumferential ring‐graben surrounding the two largest multiring impact structures on ...Europa, Tyre and Callanish. We estimate formation conditions including the ice shell structure. The radial extension necessary to form these graben is thought to be caused by asthenospheric drag of warmer, more ductile ice and/or water flowing toward the excavated center of the crater, under a brittle‐elastic lithospheric lid. Measurements of graben depths from stereo‐photoclinometric digital elevation models result in estimates of displacement, strain, and stress experienced by the ice shell. Graben widths are used to estimate the intersection depth of the bounding normal faults, a quantity related to the brittle‐ductile transition depth that approximates elastic shell thickness during crater collapse. Heat flows at the time of crater formation as well as ice lithosphere and total shell thickness are thus also constrained. Average widths and depths tend to decrease with increasing distance from the structure center, while inter‐graben spacing generally increases. Varied assumptions yield plausible total conductive ice shell thickness estimates between 4–8 and 2.5–5 km for Tyre and Callanish, respectively, and heat flows of ∼70–115 (±30) mW m−2 for realistic thermal conductivities, consistent with other geophysical estimates for Europa. Higher heat flows are consistent with thin (≲10 km), conductive ice shells and impact breaching, or penetration of the stagnant lid for a convecting ice shell. Callanish, geologically younger, formed in a time or region of greater heat flow than Tyre.
Plain Language Summary
Jupiter's moon Europa has an outer icy shell overlying a global subsurface ocean. The thickness of this icy shell controls the appearance of impact craters. The shell thickness is not well known, and may change over time, but geological indicators suggest it is on the order of 10 km thick or more. This is a relatively thin layer for craters to form in, compared the hundred‐km or thicker ice shells on most other icy bodies in the solar system. The two largest europan impacts created sets of circumferential ring‐faults that take the form of graben/troughs in the outer portions of their structures. We use measurements of the graben widths and depths to derive minimum estimates of the ice lithosphere (upper brittle portion) and total shell thicknesses and heat flows on Europa at the time the structures formed. The measurements are consistent with a minimum ice shell thickness between 2.5 and 8 km and high to exceptionally high heat flows. Greater total ice shell thicknesses are permitted if the shell is convectively overturning at depth. Notably, our heat flow estimates for Callanish (the younger structure) are uniformly higher than for Tyre (the older), contrary to expectations for Europa.
Key Points
Circumferential ring‐graben depths, widths, and spacing measured for the two largest known impact structures on Europa: Tyre and Callanish
Graben widths give plausible depths to the brittle‐ductile transition of ∼2–3 km at the time of and under the conditions of impact
Heat flows are high, dependent on fault structure and thermal conductivity, but consistent with impact breaching of a thin ice shell or lithosphere
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Models of the tidally heated, floating ice shell proposed for the jovian satellite Europa generally find shell thicknesses less than 30 km. Past parameterized convection models indicated that such ...shells are stable against convective overturn, which otherwise ostensibly leads to freezing of the ocean underneath. Here I apply the temperature‐dependent viscosity convection scaling developed by Solomatov and coworkers to the Europan ice shell. The temperature‐dependent properties of ice are linearized about 260 K, as any convective interior should be close to this temperature, with the colder ice forming an essentially passive, stagnant lid. Ice shells ≳ 10 km thick are found to be unstable to convection at their base for melting‐point viscosities of 1013 Pa‐s (as linearized by tidal stresses), if the ice deforms by superplastic creep, but such low viscosities require small grain sizes (<1 mm). This requirement may be met if grain sizes observed in terrestrial polar glaciers can be strain‐rate scaled to Europa. Regardless, convection at the base of the ice shell, if initiated, may not freeze the ocean. Because of tidal heating, a stagnant‐lid regime ice shell is much more dissipative than a conductive shell of the same thickness. Such a shell should thin, not thicken, and the potential exists for further thermal instabilities and runaways.
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9.
New Horizons Mapping of Europa and Ganymede Grundy, W.M; Buratti, B.J; Cheng, A.F ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
10/2007, Volume:
318, Issue:
5848
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The New Horizons spacecraft observed Jupiter's icy satellites Europa and Ganymede during its flyby in February and March 2007 at visible and infrared wavelengths. Infrared spectral images map H₂O ice ...absorption and hydrated contaminants, bolstering the case for an exogenous source of Europa's "non-ice" surface material and filling large gaps in compositional maps of Ganymede's Jupiter-facing hemisphere. Visual wavelength images of Europa extend knowledge of its global pattern of arcuate troughs and show that its surface scatters light more isotropically than other icy satellites.
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The New Horizons spacecraft flew past the Kuiper Belt object (486958) Arrokoth (also known as 2014 MU69) in January 2019. Because of the great distance to the outer Solar System and limited ...bandwidth, it will take until late 2020 to downlink all the spacecraft's observations back to Earth. Three papers in this issue analyze recently downlinked data, including the highest-resolution images taken during the encounter (see the Perspective by Jewitt). Spencer et al. examined Arrokoth's geology and geophysics using stereo imaging, dated the surface using impact craters, and produced a geomorphological map. Grundy et al. investigated the composition of the surface using color imaging and spectroscopic data and assessed Arrokoth's thermal emission using microwave radiometry. McKinnon et al. used simulations to determine how Arrokoth formed: Two gravitationally bound objects gently spiraled together during the formation of the Solar System. Together, these papers determine the age, composition, and formation process of the most pristine object yet visited by a spacecraft.
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