Ice volcanoes on Pluto? – Rmf24.pl

This advanced course full of surprises planetary exploration – so the latest results of observations of Pluto and its moons defines the principal scientist for the New Horizons mission, Alan Stern. NASA has just published the results of another study that this time indicate the presence of ice volcanoes on Pluto. The existence of such formations is suspected also on other objects of the solar system, but so far from the Sun they are not expected. They point to the fact that a dwarf planet must have internal heat source.

NASA Scientists suspect that kriowulkanami there are two mountain formations, located south of the characteristic plateau Sputnik Planum. Higher and more extensive ones are Piccard Mons a height of about 5500 meters. Slightly smaller, with a height of 3200 meters and a width of about 100 kilometers, the Wright Mons. In the center of both of them you can see the characteristic depression, probably craters. Any attempt to explain these formations leads to bizarre conclusions regarding them as kriowulkany is probably the least bizarre of them all – says Oliver White of Team New Horizons.

These reports is the result of analysis of images transmitted by the probe New Horizons after the flight next to Pluto, which occurred on July 14 this year. The discovery suggests that inside the dwarf planet must have been a source of heat, which led to the melting of underground layers of nitrogen and methane ice and release these gases to the surface. They probably are responsible for periodically renewing Pluto’s surface, gradually sublimated released to the atmosphere, then flee to the open space.

These formations would be the first such large kriowulkanami in the solar system – adds Jeff Moore of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View. In his view, the mold surface indicate that the eruptions that may have existed billions of years ago, throwing to the surface plasticized water ice rather than liquid water. It’s a bit like toothpaste squeezed from a tube – explains.

The current build volcanoes are probably water ice – solidified nitrogen and methane are too soft to hold such a high structure.

         

                              Region Wright in the photo the New Horizons spacecraft
                                      / NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / press materials
                                     

     

The two identified “volcanic” formations can be found on the New Horizons spacecraft images close to the line separating the day and night. NASA scientists do not exclude that in the darkness hid even more volcanoes – based on data collected this time will not be able to neither confirm nor ruled out. We have to go back a hundred years and see – concludes White.