Image credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft spied several features on Pluto that offer evidence of a time millions or billions of years ago when — thanks to much higher pressure in Pluto’s atmosphere and warmer conditions on the surface — liquids might have flowed across and pooled on the surface of the distant world. “In addition to this possible former lake, we also see evidence of channels that may also have carried liquids in Pluto’s past,” said Alan Stern, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado—principal investigator of New Horizons and lead author of the scientific paper.
This feature appears to be a frozen, former lake of liquid nitrogen, located in a mountain range just north of Pluto’s informally named Sputnik Planum. Captured by the New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) as the spacecraft flew past Pluto on 14 July 2015, the image shows details as small as about 430 feet (130 metres). At its widest point the possible lake appears to be about 20 miles (30 kilometres) across.
The final days before NASA’s New Horizons probe barrels in on its next destination on Jan. 1, 2019, should prove eventful, with scientists trying to sort out whether a distant mini-world detected by the Hubble Space Telescope more than three years ago may actually be a swarm of icy objects.
Pluto’s “icy heart” is a bright, two-lobed feature on its surface that was discovered by NASA’s New Horizons team in 2015. The heart’s western lobe, informally named Sputnik Planitia, is a deep basin generally thought to have been created by a smaller body striking Pluto at extremely high speed, but a new study suggests a different origin.
Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto over 85 years ago. He died in 1997, but during the historic 14 July flyby of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, Clyde’s children Alden and Annette Tombaugh will be special guests at mission headquarters. Here they reflect on their father’s legacy.
