Friday, February 16, 2024

Dwarf planet methane

Amazing that we can actually see the composition of Eris' (and Makemake's) crust: there's methane. Apparently new methane, without deuterium. Which means it is being burped out from the interior. Which means a warm interior.

"Warm" is a relative term from an orbit which never even crosses Neptune's (contrast: Mars). But how is Eris (the one I know more about) warm - at all? There's a moon. It is a tiny moon, not a set as might squeeze the interior with tides.

If these are radioactive elements then that process is not feeding neutrons into the surrounding hydrogen ice. So it is a slow decay, straight beta/alpha, not like that natural reactor in Gabon (or maybe Ceres).

No comments:

Post a Comment