Pluto Planetary Science is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
Something's wetting the surface of dwarf planet Pluto along the northern edge of Sputnik Planitia, and planetary scientists have found a good explanation for it. A recent study of new Horizons images taken during the 2015 flyby revealed evidence that liquid nitrogen is rising up through cracks in Sputnik Planitia. That's the giant heart-shaped glacial basin we see in all the Pluto images taken by…
Recent analysis of images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft during its 2015 flyby of Pluto has revealed intriguing evidence of liquid nitrogen being released from beneath the surface of the dwarf planet's Sputnik Planitia basin. This phenomenon is particularly puzzling given Pluto's extremely cold surface temperatures, which rarely exceed -229 degrees Celsius, well below the nitrogen's melting point of -209.9 degrees Celsius.
The study, led by New Horizons principal investigator and Southwest Research Institute vice president Alan Stern, compared New Horizons imagery of Pluto with Landsat images of regions on Earth that exhibit similar upwelling of materials from below the surface. The team identified several striking similarities, suggesting that a similar process is occurring on Pluto.
Pluto's Sputnik Planitia, while appearing smooth from a distance, is in fact filled with irregular polygons and troughs, resembling frozen convection cells formed in nitrogen ice. Thin, dark lines outline these cells and appear wet, likely due to outflows of liquid nitrogen. This suggests that something is melting the nitrogen and forcing it up through cracks in the ice.
The source of this heat remains unclear, but it could be due to geothermal activity within Pluto's icy shell or perhaps geothermal heating from Pluto's core. Once the liquid nitrogen reaches the surface, it ponds and eventually flows across the landscape, creating the dark features observed in the glacial plain.
Stern noted that Pluto continues to surprise scientists with its unique and complex surface features. While the majority of Pluto's terrain has not been mapped, the evidence suggests that these convective processes are relatively young, forming within the last million years. This makes Sputnik Planitia an intriguing region to study, as it provides a unique set of conditions that differ significantly from those found on Earth.
The findings of this SwRI study offer valuable insights into the behavior of materials in extreme environments, such as those found on Pluto. Understanding these processes could help scientists better comprehend how icy worlds function and evolve, potentially shedding light on similar phenomena elsewhere in the outer Solar System, such as on Neptune's moon Triton.
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