Friday, October 13, 2017, 3pm
Location: Planetary Hall Room 126
Michael Summers
Department of Physics & Astronomy
George Mason University
The
New Horizons
Mission to Pluto: A Recap of Science Results, and a Look Forward to the
Encounter with 2014MU69
Abstract
The New
Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to the Pluto/Charon
double planet
system on July 14, 2015. The observations, and
especially the images of
Pluto and Charon returned by the spacecraft were astonishing, and
provided many
surprises. Those surprises included a gigantic glacier,
presumably made
of nitrogen, methane, and possibly other ices, on Pluto’s
equator that buffers
Pluto’s atmosphere. Another was the apparently
“fresh” nature of the
surfaces of both Pluto and Charon, implying geological
“young” ages for these
objects. And yet another surprise was the global system of
haze layers for
which we still lack a convincing explanation. The information from the
New
Horizons encounter has taught us much, yet it has opened up completely
new
questions about how planets form and evolve. In this talk I
will give a recap of the
major science results from the New Horizons mission as well as an
overview of
the key remaining questions. I
will also
discuss what we can expect as the New Horizons spacecraft travels
onward to its
next flyby of Kuiper Belt Object 2014MU69 that will occur on January 1,
2019.