{"id":16180,"date":"2015-07-16T00:42:05","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T16:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/scientists-thrilled-with-mountains-on-pluto-chasms-on-charon\/"},"modified":"2015-07-16T00:42:05","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T16:42:05","slug":"scientists-thrilled-with-mountains-on-pluto-chasms-on-charon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/scientists-thrilled-with-mountains-on-pluto-chasms-on-charon\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists thrilled with mountains on Pluto, chasms on Charon"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

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A snapshot of Pluto shows fresh deposits of water ice bedrock and 11,000-foot mountains, revealing evidence Pluto\u2019s surface is one of the youngest in the solar system. Photo credit: NASA\/JHUAPL\/SWRI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Post-flyby images from NASA\u2019s New Horizons probe show Pluto is a surprisingly active world in the deep freeze of the outer solar system, with jagged 11,000-foot-high mountains of frozen water dusted with a veneer of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide ice amid smooth plains and jumbled terrain that defies easy explanation, scientists reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n

A distinct paucity of impact craters implies processes at work now or in the geologically recent past that have resurfaced large areas of Pluto, smoothing out the pockmarks so familiar on other small bodies. What powers that resurfacing is not yet known, but scientists are hopeful New Horizons eventually will provide the answer.<\/p>\n

And what of Pluto\u2019s large, Texas-size moon Charon? A higher-resolution close-up photo unveiled Wednesday shows huge cliffs and troughs stretching hundreds of miles, deep chasms in the frozen crust and intriguing hints of structure in the moon\u2019s dark polar cap. Like on Pluto, craters are relatively few and far between.<\/p>\n

NASA also showed the first photo of one of Pluto\u2019s four smaller satellites, Hydra, a pixelated image with a brightness corresponding to the presence of more water ice covering an irregular banana-shaped body.<\/p>\n

New Horizons carried out its historic flyby Tuesday in radio silence, aiming its instruments at Pluto, Charon and the dwarf planet\u2019s other four satellites and storing the data on board until there was time to turn back toward Earth to transmit high-priority first-look data.<\/p>\n

Alan Stern, the $720 million mission\u2019s principal investigator, said he was thrilled with the initial results.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a pretty good day yesterday, how about you?\u201d he joked before a cheering crowd of supporters on hand for the first post-flyby news conference. \u201cWe have big news,\u201d he continued. \u201cFrom the first resolved image of Hydra, Pluto\u2019s outermost moon, to the discovery that Charon has been active. And there are mountains in the Kuiper Belt.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was referring to the vast realm beyond Neptune where countless small bodies and larger worlds orbit, remnants of the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Pluto, famously demoted from planethood shortly after New Horizons was launched in 2006, is the most famous member of the Kuiper Belt and the first such body to be visited by a spacecraft.<\/p>\n