Ice volcanoes on dwarf planet Pluto have puzzled researchers

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March 30, 2022 – 3:30 pm Watch

by Karim Belbacher

Is Pluto Still Active? Does it also have an underground ocean and active volcanoes? These questions are more topical than ever as images of some ice volcanoes from the New Horizons spacecraft were re-evaluated.

Mountains Wright Mons and Piccard Mons are actually ice volcanoes

Images of the surface of New Horizons’ dwarf planet Pluto

Evaluation of scientific data sometimes takes years. So is information about Pluto collected seven years ago by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. In this, a team of scientists found clues about how parts of the surface could have formed. In early 2015, NASA suspected after seeing photographs that the Wright Mons and Piccard Mons mountains were actually volcanoes. This has now been confirmed, according to a study by Kelsey Singer, director of research at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and colleagues.

sticky water ice

FILE - epa04519708 An undated artist's concept provided by NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI) on December 08, 2014 shows the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto — New Horizons was created to study Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

These are ice volcanoes that eject viscous water ice instead of hot magma. Sure enough, the research team recently discovered erupted icy lava. An area to the southwest of the Sputnik Planitia ice basin, which was almost free of impact craters, was examined more closely. Instead, there were hill-like elevations. This surprised scientists at first, because Pluto is otherwise covered with craters of colliding meteorites. “These geological features are not formed by erosion, nor by runaway ice”The researchers announced.

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Underground ocean on Pluto?

So they came to the conclusion that Pluto also has cryovolcanoes. A phenomenon already known from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. However, even an active ice volcano requires a drive. Until now it has been assumed that Pluto’s core has cooled and that it is not an option as a heat source. The water ice on Pluto would then be in a solid state. The fact that it isn’t shows that the core of the planet is hotter than previously estimated. For example, the situation is different on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, where an ocean of water is suspected under a layer of ice. Saturn’s gravity generates enough heat there to keep the Moon’s water liquid. With a heat-radiating planetary core, the question of liquid water on Pluto should also resurface.

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New Horizons in the Kuiper Belt

The New Horizons mission began in 2006 with the aim of studying the edge of our solar system. In 2015, it was the first to reach Pluto and thus also transmitted the first images of the dwarf planet’s surface. She is currently flying in the Kuiper Belt and investigating various asteroids there. In 2019, the probe also provided data and images from asteroid (486958) Arrokoth 2014 MU69. By the 1930s, New Horizons would still have enough energy to be active.

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