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Pluto_and_Charon2 karma

Have any preliminary calculations been done to show the effect of tidal heating on these worlds? It would be a shame if it turned out they're all as volcanic as Io

Although I'm guessing the low density of these planets indicates that they are water rich = no Io-scale volcanic activity? Could my logic here be correct?

Pluto_and_Charon2 karma

I never got why more massive rings = older and less massive rings = younger. Can anyone explain it for me? Thanks

Is the reasoning that rings loose mass over time? So a less massive ring must have formed in the recent past because it'll only last a few hundred million years before it disappears/decays? But if that's the case, why can't the less massive rings just be a very old ring that's decayed over 4 billion years and is now much smaller than it originally was? (and surely that's a far more likely scenario, given that collision rates were orders of magnitudes higher back during the late heavy bombardment then they were 100 million years ago?)

Pluto_and_Charon1 karma

If the planets are so close to each other and are significantly influencing each other's orbits, why haven't they collided yet?

Pluto_and_Charon1 karma

If Hubble could rule out hydrogen rich atmospheres on the inner two planets last year, could it do the same for the newly discovered, more (potentially) habitable planets?