Pluto, Dwarf Planets, and Kuiper Belt objects

[willendure]

It would appear to have a strong hemisphere dichotomy, like Mars. Hemisphere dichotomy is quite a common theme amongst the planets and moons.

[D_Archer]

pls merge with main Charon thread.
Regards,
Daniel

[redeye]

It would appear to have a strong hemisphere dichotomy, like Mars. Hemisphere dichotomy is quite a common theme amongst the planets and moons.

I had never considered this before, a waterless Earth would have a similar "acorn" appearance. I see that they have gone for the ad-hoc cryovolcanism hypothesis.

The "mountain with a moat feature" is intriguing, I can't remember seeing anything quite like that.

Is the dark area at the top of the image centered around the magnetic pole? What is the large dark straight line feature to the right, a crater?

Cheers

[D_Archer]

Is the dark area at the top of the image centered around the magnetic pole? What is the large dark straight line feature to the right, a crater?

Cheers

Yes, the dark/red area is the magnetic pole.

Which picture are you looking at? I do not see dark straight line on the latest picture*

*https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-charon-neutral-bright-release.jpg

Regards,
Daniel

[redeye]

Which picture are you looking at? I do not see dark straight line on the latest picture*

I originally saw the images on the BBC website
The feature isn't apparent in the Hi Res images. Whereas the image you posted (first post) seems to have a dark straight line at around 2 oclock on the disc which looked to me to be the fringe of a large crater, but with land visible above it. Kind of reminded me of the raised crater (Odysseus Basin) on Tethys, it's not really "raised" I just can't think of a better way to describe it.
On the Hi Res image you can see the craters and stuff that morph into a dark straight line on the lower res image.

Pluto's atmosphere, which is composed mainly of nitrogen but also harbors some methane and carbon monoxide, is extremely wispy and extends far out into space. Over the eons, some of this air has escaped and been trapped by Charon's gravity at the moon's north pole

So the Earth's thick atmosphere freezes at the poles creating ice caps and Mars' tenuous atmosphere freezes at the poles creating "ice" caps. Now Pluto's practically non existent atmosphere, freezes on Charon, creating "ice" caps, but not on Pluto as far as I can see. Weird. If Charon has no atmosphere and is gravitationally locked to Pluto, why would matter be deposited at the Pole(s)?

Does New Horizons have the ability to tell us if Pluto has a magnetosphere?

[GaryN]

One of the lines appears to be a crater chain.
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/inde ... t&id=38115

[GaryN]

Preliminary Geomorphology
https://univ.smugmug.com/New-Horizons-M ... v1.0-L.png

[D_Archer]

[D_Archer]

Crater chain.