I think that there is something special about Pluto that we haven't seen with other large bodies that makes it take longer to lose its latent heat. And that special thing is its composition and size. The only other object similar to it in both of these respects is Triton, but Triton has tidal heating that might mask this effect.

Now, wouldn't THAT be a neat thing to find out! Triton is an interesting object that I hope we get a better look at during my lifetime. It is most likely a captured object, orbiting the "wrong way" around Neptune. It is (barely) bigger than Pluto as well.

This is why I love science. Last month, we did not even know to ask these questions, yet here we are excited and forced to think outside of a comfort zone. Maybe something odd is going on in the Pluto system! Or maybe the impactor that created the Pluto system was recent! Or maybe there is a weird new chemistry going on here! Maybe a bit of everything?

I've been reading up a bit on a proposed sample Return Mission to Pluto. 12 years to get there, a few years to map the place out and possibly make fuel on the surface of Pluto, and due to the small size and weaker gravity maybe multiple landings. Then take off and head back to earth in 12-13 years. I really hope that Pluto turns out to be fantastically weird so that something like this mission becomes a reality.

I'm mostly just typing this out so that I have a record of what I thought "way back when", so that I can objectively see how right I was later on, and as "food for thought" for you guys. Again, it may all be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt.

I'm doing the same thing here. It will be neat to come back to this thread a year from now when we have most of not all the data and can laugh at how wrong/right we are.