Starship Asterisk*

FLPhotoCatcher wrote:Amazing.
Are people still saying the white area looks like a heart? It used to, but now in the closer view it looks like a giant footprint.

wsx wrote:LOL, "iconic heart"...

Guest wrote:What is the remaining purpose of the the mission? Why didn't they put it into orbit and gather tons o' data?

Dad is watching wrote:
We noticed a lack of cratering on the surface, although there are some. Does this mean that the surface is not that old (geological active?); or that the gravity well is too small to attract impact objects; or is it just too far out there to get hit? Also, does the 'reddish' color indicate iron oxide (?) like on mars?

• The surface is not that old = geological active.

Dad is watching wrote:
Also, does the 'reddish' color indicate iron oxide (?) like on mars?

• No, it's "Triton tholin":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tholin wrote:
<<Tholins [after the ancient Greek word θολός (tholós) meaning "sepia ink"] are a class of heteropolymer molecules formed by solar ultraviolet irradiation of simple organic compounds such as methane or ethane. Tholins do not form naturally on modern-day Earth, but are found in great abundance on the surface of icy bodies in the outer Solar System. They usually have a reddish-brown appearance.

The term "tholin" was coined by astronomer Carl Sagan and his colleague Bishun Khare to describe the difficult-to-characterize substances he obtained in his Miller-Urey-type experiments on the gas mixtures that are found in Titan's atmosphere.[1] Tholins are not one specific compound but rather are descriptive of a spectrum of molecules that give a reddish, organic surface covering on certain planetary surfaces.

The surfaces of comets, centaurs, and many icy moons in the outer Solar System are rich in deposits of tholins. "Triton tholin" and "Titan tholin" are nitrogen-rich organic substances produced by the irradiation of the gaseous mixtures of nitrogen and methane found in the atmospheres of these moons; Triton's atmosphere is 99.9% nitrogen and 0.1% methane, while Titan's atmosphere is 98.4% nitrogen and the remaining 1.6% composed of methane and trace amounts of other gases. In the case of Titan, the haze and orange-red color of its atmosphere is thought to be caused by the presence of tholins. It is believed that tholins also occur on the dwarf planet Pluto, and that they are responsible for its red color. The plutino Ixion is also high in this substance.

Tholins may have also been detected in the stellar system of an eight-million-year-old star known as HR 4796A using the Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The HR 4796 system is approximately 220 light years from Earth.

Some researchers have speculated that Earth may have been seeded by organic compounds early in its development by tholin-rich comets, providing the raw material necessary for life to develop (see Miller-Urey experiment for discussion related to this issue). Tholins do not exist naturally on present-day Earth due to the oxidizing character of the free oxygen component of its atmosphere ever since the Great Oxygenation Event around 2.4 billion years ago.>>

neufer wrote:The surface is not that old = geological active.

Guest wrote:What is the remaining purpose of the the mission?

emc wrote:

montylc2001 wrote:Closely studying the latest most detailed image of Charon, it looks like a cracked eggshell with the pieces poorly reassembled. Charon impact with Pluto almost shattered it, gravity pulled it back together?