Pluto's Craterless Plains Look Young | The Institute for Creation Research

Pluto's Craterless Plains Look Young

Earlier this year, New Horizons flew past dwarf planet Pluto and its sister Charon, rapidly capturing data. That information continues to trickle in, revealing a surprisingly smooth heart-shaped plain called "Tombaugh Regio." The countless craters expected from billions of years' worth of impacts are nowhere to be found.

Tombaugh Regio is centered just north of Pluto's equator and contains a western lobe called "Sputnik Planum." After thorough data scouring, researchers found zero craters on Sputnik Planum.

The most obvious way to "smooth" this plain is for recent geologic activity to erase impact craters. But this clearly implies a recent and sizable output of energy from Pluto's interior. That's quite a trick for an object so far from the sun and isolated from outside gravitational pulls that might contribute to that energy. Pluto is so small and far removed from its moment of creation— supposedly over four billion years ago—that its internal heat should have vanished long ago.

"It's a huge finding that small planets can be active on a massive scale, billions of years after their creation," said Alan Stern, principal investigator behind the New Horizons spacecraft on November 9 at the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in National Harbor, Maryland.1

NASA released a video of New Horizons flight over the vast flatness of Sputnik Planum.2 New images and information also reveal two crater-topped mountains that appear to be ice volcanos rising several miles above Pluto's surface. Pluto's fault ridges and other signs of youth all show "seemingly young surfaces" that run "against many expectations" according to a presentation abstract from the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in Maryland.3 All this jives with what the Institute for Creation Research suggested just before New Horizons was set to collect data from Pluto and Charon—that it would uncover more evidence of a young-looking solar system.4

Space.com wrote,

Scientists had expected that heat to be lost if Pluto was an old object. But New Horizons revealed an active surface on an old planet, and internal heating is the best current guess for what's driving that activity—even if scientists don't quite know how that heat has lasted over 4 billion years.1

Perhaps the heat has not lasted "over 4 billion years." This inferred heat presents no challenge to the idea that Pluto is young—part of a recent creation. But Stern said, "We can't appeal to a young Pluto-Charon system to explain energy sources." One wonders why not since the evidence points that direction. Does a young Pluto sound too biblical?

References

  1. Redd, N. T. Part of Pluto's Heart Was 'Born Yesterday.' Space.com. Posted on space.com November 11, 2015, accessed November 11, 2015.
  2. Art Meets Science in New Pluto Aerial Tour. Stuart Robbins, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, stitched New Horizons spacecraft images of Pluto's surface together to craft this flyover animation.
  3. Trowbridge, A. J., H. J. Melosh, and A. M. Freed. Vigorous Convection Underlies Pluto's Surface Activity. Presented at the November 2015 47th Annual Meeting, American Astronomical Society, Division of Planetary Sciences, #102.01. The abstract's opening line reads: "Against many expectations, New Horizons' images of the surface of Pluto and Charon show seemingly young surfaces." http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015DPS...
    .4710201T
  4. Hebert, J. New Horizons, Pluto, and the Age of the Solar System. Creation Science Update. Posted on icr.org July 14, 2015, accessed November 17, 2015. 

Image credit: 2015 NASA. Public Domain. Adapted for use in accordance with federal copyright (fair use doctrine) law. Usage by ICR does not imply endorsement of copyright holder.

*Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on November 23, 2015.

The Latest
CREATION PODCAST
Water vs. Wind: The Controversial Coconino | The Creation Podcast:...
Welcome to the sixth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old...

NEWS
Fossil Fish Finally Filmed
The bizarre lobe-finned coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) “that flourished some 350 million years ago”1 continues to be a thorn...

NEWS
The Mosasaur: A Giant Sea Dragon
Mosasaurs (order Squamata) were massive marine lizards that were common in the pre-Flood oceans. Therefore, it is not surprising that their fossils...

DAYS OF PRAISE DEVOTIONALS
Summer 2025
...

NEWS
Was Life Detected on a Distant Planet?
There was celebration, albeit briefly, for the discovery of potential life on a planet called K2-18b, which is 124 lightyears away from Earth. The...

NEWS
Ichthyosaur Graveyard Explained by the Flood
Ichthyosaurs are marine reptiles that occur globally in the same rock layers as dinosaurs. Specimens with babies support the idea that they gave live...

CREATION PODCAST
What Do We Do With Geology's Unconforming Features? | The Creation...
Welcome to the fifth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old...

NEWS
Freshwater Fish Fossil in Australia
Yet another fish fossil has been discovered. This one was found in the Australian desert and was dated by evolutionists to be “15 million years...

NEWS
May 2025 ICR Wallpaper
"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans...

NEWS
Acoustic Communication in Animals
We are all familiar with vocalizations in the animal world. For example, dogs bark, birds sing, frogs croak, and whales send forth their own distinct...