A cluster of dome-shaped ice volcanoes that look like nothing else in our solar system and may still be active have been spotted on Pluto using data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, showing that this distant icy universe is more dynamic than everything that was known in the past. Scientists said Tuesday that these cry volcanoes – numbering perhaps 10 or more – range in height from six-tenths of a mile (1km) to 4-1 / 2 miles (7km). Unlike Earth’s volcanoes that spew gas and molten rock, the dwarf volcanoes on this dwarf planet eject large amounts of ice – apparently ice water and not some other frozen material – that may have the texture of toothpaste, they said. Characteristic of the dwarf planet Demeter in the asteroid belt, the moons of Saturn, Enceladus and Titan, the moons of Jupiter, Europe and the moons of Poseidon, the Third have also been stuck as cold volcanoes. But all of these are different from Pluto, the researchers said, because of different surface conditions, such as temperature and atmospheric pressure, as well as different mixtures of frozen materials. “Finding these features shows that Pluto is more active or geologically alive than we previously thought it would be,” said Kelsi Singer, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., Lead author of the study, which was published in the journal. Nature Communications https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29056-3. “The combination of these geologically recent features, which cover a huge area and probably consist of water ice, is amazing because it requires more internal heat than Pluto would have thought at this stage in its history,” she added. Singer. Strangely massive land on Pluto, in contrast to anything observed in the solar system, indicates that giant ice volcanoes have been active relatively recently on the dwarf planet, scientists said on March 29. ISACC HERERA / AFP / Getty Images Pluto, which is smaller than Earth’s moon and about 1,400 miles (2,380 kilometers) in diameter, orbits about 3.6 billion miles (5.8 billion kilometers) away from the sun, about 40 times farther from orbit. land. On its surface there are plains, mountains, craters and valleys. The images and data analyzed in the new study, taken in 2015 by New Horizons, corroborated previous hypotheses about Pluto’s cryopreservation. The study found not only extensive evidence of cryopreservation but also that it was long-lived, not a single episode, said Southwest Research Institute planetary scientist Alan Stern, New Horizons lead researcher and co-author of the study. “What is most fascinating about Pluto is that it is as complex – as complex as Earth or Mars despite its smaller size and greater distance from the sun,” Stern said. “This was a real surprise from the New Horizons flight, and the new cryopreservation result highlights that dramatically.” The researchers analyzed an area southwest of Sputnik Planitia, Pluto’s large, heart-shaped basin filled with nitrogen ice. They found large domes 18-60 miles (30-100 km) wide, which were sometimes combined to form more complex structures. An altitude called Wright Mons, one of the highest, may have formed from many volcanic domes merging, giving it a shape unlike any other volcano on Earth. Although it has a different shape, it resembles the large volcano Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Like Earth and the other planets in our solar system, Pluto formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Based on the absence of impact craters that would normally accumulate over time, it seems that its cold volcanoes are relatively recent – they have formed over the last hundreds of millions of years. “This is a new geological timeline. “Because there are almost no impact craters, it is possible that these processes are still ongoing today,” said Ms. Singer. Pluto has many active geologies, including nitrogen-flowing glaciers and a cycle in which nitrogen ice evaporates during the day and condenses back into ice at night – a process that is constantly changing the planet’s surface. “Pluto is a geological wonderland,” said Singer. “Many areas of Pluto are completely different from each other. “If you only had a few pieces of a Pluto puzzle, you would have no idea what the other areas looked like.” The Morning and Afternoon Newsletters are compiled by Globe editors, giving you a brief overview of the day’s most important headlines. Register today.
