The exploration of the Pluto system by New Horizons

Séminaire IPAG de Bernard Schmitt (IPAG), jeudi 28 avril 2016 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

Since the flyby of Pluto and its five moons on 14 July 2015 part of the 50Go of measurements recorded by its 5 instruments have been downloaded to Earth and calibrated. A number of interesting discoveries have been made in various fields on Pluto, Charon and the 4 small satellites. Pluto’s surface was found to display a wide variety of landforms and terrain ages, as well as dramatic albedo, color, and compositional variegation. In particular some of its geologically young surface units are extraordinary active for a body with a mean temperature of 40K. I will present the major results obtained so far on the atmosphere of Pluto, and on the composition and geology of Pluto, Charon and the other smaller satellites, with their implications on the history of these bodies.