Now for a little bit with Charon

I think you could call much of this week "and now for something completely different..."


While many of us (including me) thought that we would find a little snowball without many surface features, we have, of course, been proven wrong. Mother Nature has a way of doing that, and that is one of the principal reasons that I find science so exciting.

To give you a little recap and maybe pique your curiosity, Pluto has a variety of surface features, and they appear to be geologically new.  That's really surprising. Its really far from the sun (duh) and really small, so what could cause geologic activity? WE DON"T KNOW.

Add to that a serious lack of cratering, and you have to think that something is remaking the surface. (Impact craters tend to disappear on Earth due to activity, and remain on our moon, due to lack of activity).


Another good article from Smithsonian (which is showing terrific scientific coverage of the flyby without being too technical).