Tag: Cracks

New Pluto Images Show Nitrogen Pits

ryanLeave a comment
Every so often we see a new set of images from Pluto, giving us a chance to rediscover it multiple times.  It’s like we are experiencing the July fly-by over and over again, and each new set of images reveals something new and exciting.  I feel the same sense of excitement and discovery each time I see a new image, realizing that it spent 6 hours as a beam of light crossing the 5 Billion Kilometres of the solar system to connect us to the New Horizons probe, a lonely little piece of human ingenuity flying through the darkness. Here...

Enceladus’ Global Subsurface Ocean Confirmed

ryanLeave a comment
For years there has been talk of a subsurface ocean present within Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus.  Many have simply assumed it to be fact, but the reality is, something so complex on a world so far away is very difficult to prove conclusively.  But now, using data from over a decade of observations by the Cassini spacecraft, mission scientists have shown conclusively that Enceladus must have a global ocean beneath a surface of ice. Previous data analysis suggested that there was a lens-shaped liquid ocean beneath the south polar region of the planet, giving a source for the observed plumes...