New info about Pluto we didn't know until New Horizon flyby

New info about Pluto we didn't know until New Horizon flyby
1)Pluto is larger than we thought Pluto’s diameter is larger than expected about two-thirds the size of Earth’s moon, giving Pluto a surface area comparable to Russia. The finding is significant because it means the world is less dense than previously thought, indicating that it was composed of more ice and less rock.
2)Parts of Pluto are devoid of craters The distinctive heart-shaped region, named Tombaugh Regio, contains smooth plains without craters. Ancient surfaces in the solar system, such as those on the Moon, are peppered with craters which date from when the planets were formed 4.6 billion years ago. Pluto’s surface was thought to be ancient too but Tombaugh Regio can only be about 100 million years in age, which is young in geological terms.
3)Pluto’s internal heat source is a mystery To smooth away the craters, Pluto needs internal heat to soften or melt the surface. Where this heat comes from is a mystery. Pluto is thought to be too small to generate much radioactive heat, nor is it squeezed by a larger world to generate tidal energy, such as happens between Jupiter and its moons Io and Europa. Yet something is making it geologically active. This is the biggest mystery of the flyby. Resolving it promises to tell us something totally unexpected about planetary geology.Humm I thought I wrote something about this before the flyby,yes I did!!!Just was thinking outside of the box.Just my crazy mind coming up with something.
4)Pluto’s atmosphere is disappearing Radio waves beamed from Earth passed through Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere and were detected by New Horizons. They show that the pressure is just 1/100-thousandths that of Earth’s atmosphere at sea level. This is much lower than expected and could show that the atmosphere is rapidly freezing to the surface as Pluto moves away from the Sun.Plus they think Pluto has lost over 14 feet of its surface during its lifetime.Remember Pluto low gravity and during summertime Pluto's atmosphere is ticker than it was during the flyby.In some ways Pluto behaves like a comet,the comet can lose more than 1/3 of there surface ice during its close approach to the Sun.I bet during summertime on Pluto if you had a space probe nearby you could see the gas coming from Pluto atmosphere
5)Scientists still name things after Lord of the Rings Remember the good ol’days when all main-frame computers were named Gandalf and users were given Tolkeinesque names by the system administrator (who almost certainly looked like Gandalf)? NASA does. As soon as they saw the dark region near the pole of Pluto’s moon Charon, they started calling it Mordor..
6)Pluto has mountains 3.5km high To the south of Tombaugh Regio are mountains that have been termed Norgay Montes, after Tenzing Norgay, who climbed Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953. Pluto’s mountains are likely not made of rock but of rock-solid water ice. It is presently unknown what geological forces pushed up these jagged peaks, which are comparable to the Rocky Mountains on Earth. A second, lower mountain range on Pluto has been identified and named after Hilary.
7)Pluto’s surface looks like boiling milk The smooth plains of Tombaugh Regio have been called Sputnik Planum, after the first Russian satellite, launched in 1957. Much of these plains are separated into blocks, each about 12 miles wide. They resemble the pattern of convection cells seen in steadily boiling milk. Perhaps they are where heat escaped from the interior of Pluto and temporarily melted the surface before freezing over again, immortalizing the pattern.
8)Pluto’s red color comes from ‘molecular rain’ Images of Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere show haze layers where methane molecules have been broken apart by the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Recombining in various ways to form larger, more complicated molecules, these eventually become solid particles called tholins. They fall from the atmosphere onto Pluto’s surface. Being tar-like, the tholins give the surface a reddish-brown color.
9)A little more of my Pluto is like a comet!Pluto has a tail a bit like a comet Pluto is losing an estimated 500 tonnes of nitrogen every hour into space. In comparison, Mars is losing just 1 tonne of gas an hour into space. New Horizons flew through the dwarf planet’s nitrogen tail, which extends for 109,000 kilometers away from Pluto. The tail is sculpted by electrically charged particles from the Sun flowing past Pluto.
10)There will be more surprises to come from Pluto Data is trickling back at a rate that makes even rural broadband look fast. At more than five billion kilometres away, the New Horizons data rate just a few kilobits a second. On Earth, fiberoptic broadband can supply up to 150,000 kilobits per second. The result is that all the data from the flyby will take up to 16 months to download. So prepare for a steady stream of Pluto images and revelations in the months to come.Just think of this the radio power is only 10 watts and they pick up this weak radio wave from 2 billion miles away.That is like try to see a candle from New York and you in LA!Just think of its a xmas gift that keeps on giving!