The Surface Age of Sputnik Planum, Pluto, Must Be Less than 10 Million Years.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26790001.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0147386 and PMC identifier 4720356.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Data from the New Horizons mission to Pluto show no craters on Sputnik Planum down to the detection limit (2 km for low resolution data, 625 m for high resolution data). The number of small Kuiper Belt Objects that should be impacting Pluto is known to some degree from various astronomical surveys. We combine these geological and telescopic observations to make an order of magnitude estimate that the surface age of Sputnik Planum must be less than 10 million years. This maximum surface age is surprisingly young and implies that this area of Pluto must be undergoing active resurfacing, presumably through some cryo-geophysical process. We discuss three possible resurfacing mechanisms and the implications of each one for Pluto's physical properties.
Medical subject headings
- Astronomy
- Extraterrestrial Environment
- Geology
- Ice
- Pluto