earth science

Piccard Mons

Piccard Mons is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Piccard Mons rather than just read about it. In short: Piccard Mons is a large, roughly circular mountain and likely cryovolcano on the dwarf planet Pluto. Discovered by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, it is located southeast of Wright Mons within the Tombaugh Regio, adjacent to the Safronov Regio and Elcano Montes.

Key takeaways

Piccard Mons belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Piccard Mons to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Piccard Mons from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Piccard Mons is a large, roughly circular mountain and likely cryovolcano on the dwarf planet Pluto. Discovered by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, it is located southeast of Wright Mons within the Tombaugh Regio, adjacent to the Safronov Regio and Elcano Montes.

Discovery and naming On 14 July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft conducted a flyby of the Pluto and its system of moons, resolving surface features on Pluto for the first time. Piccard Mons was soon after informally named by the New Horizons team after Swiss balloonist and physicist Auguste Piccard. On 30 May 2019, Piccard Mons was approved as the official name of the feature by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Piccard Mons is believed to be the tallest cryovolcano on Pluto with an estimated height of 7 km (4.2 mi)

Challenges By the time the New Horizons spacecraft was conducting its highest-resolution observations, the mountain was in darkness, having rotated past Pluto's terminator. Although some images were able to be taken past the line of darkness using sunlight reflected by Pluto's atmospheric haze layers, much less can be told about it than neighboring sunlit regions.

Geography Piccard Mons is at one of the southernmost points on Pluto. It is located in the southeastern part of the Tombaugh Regio and is west of the Safronov Regio. It is to the southeast of the Wright Mons and Hyecho Palus.

Structure and geology Piccard Mons is not made of rock like many other volcanoes in the Solar System, but a combination of ammonia, methane, carbon monoxide, ice, and nitrogen, all in solid form. Additionally, it is believed that Piccard Mons is made up of additional materials that are stronger than N2 ice. Near Piccard Mons and the surrounding area, there is a hummocky terrain which means that there are consistent hills in the area. Very little is known about these hilly areas, but they do not seem to have been formed by erosion or continuous melting and freezing.

Cryovolcanism It is believed that Piccard Mons is an effusive cryovolcano rather than explosive. This means that there was a low-viscosity fluid known as cryomagma that flowed down the mountain. Before the discovery of Piccard Mons, it was believed that Pluto didn't have enough residual heat to cause volcanic eruptions, but with the evidence of the volcano having recently erupted, it is believed that there may have been enough radioactive material in the core of Pluto to cause such an eruption.

See also List of geological features on Pluto List of tallest mountains in the Solar System

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Piccard Mons

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Piccard Mons claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Piccard Mons before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Piccard Mons ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Piccard Mons

In research: Piccard Mons appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Piccard Mons in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Piccard Mons is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Extraterrestrial mountains, Extraterrestrial volcanoes, Geography of Pluto, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Piccard Mons outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Piccard Mons” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Piccard Mons in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Piccard Mons means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Piccard Mons out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Piccard Mons in simple terms?

Why does Piccard Mons matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Piccard Mons?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Piccard Mons.