The New Horizons spacecraft has found evidence of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane ices flowing across the dwarf planet’s surface.
In the northern region of Sputnik Planum, swirl-shaped patterns of light and dark suggest that a surface layer of exotic ices has flowed around obstacles and into depressions, much like glaciers on Earth. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
“I’m really smiling. We’ve only seen surfaces like this on active worlds like Earth and Mars,” said Dr John Spencer of Southwest Research Institute, a scientist for the New Horizons mission.
Newly released photos captured by New Horizons show fascinating detail within Sputnik Planum, a vast, crater-less plain of ice located in Pluto’s Tombaugh Regio. There, an ice sheet appears to have flowed – and may still be flowing – in a manner similar to glaciers on our planet.
New data from the Ralph instrument aboard the spacecraft indicate that the center of Sputnik Planum is rich in nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane ices.
“At Pluto’s temperatures of minus 390 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 234 degrees Celsius), these ices can flow like a glacier,” said team member Dr Bill McKinnon of Washington University, St. Louis.
This image of the southern region of Sputnik Planum reveals icy plains, two mountain ranges, and a region where it appears that ancient, heavily-cratered terrain has been invaded by much newer icy deposits. The large crater is about 30 miles (50 km) wide. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
In the southernmost region of the Pluto’s ‘heart,’ it appears that ancient, heavily-cratered terrain – named Cthulhu Regio – has been invaded by much newer icy deposits.
A recently discovered range of mountains – named Hillary Montes for Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953 – rises 5,200 feet (1.5 km) above the surrounding plains.
“For many years, we referred to Pluto as the Everest of planetary exploration. It’s fitting that the two climbers who first summited Earth’s highest mountain, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, now have their names on this new Everest,” said Dr Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, principal investigator for New Horizons.
