Far beyond the orbit of Neptune, a small world that was once counted among the planets has turned out to carry a more restless past than anyone expected. A team led by Kelsi Singer of the Southwest Research Institute, drawing on images gathered during NASA's New Horizons flyby in 2015, now reports that Pluto built ice volcanoes not in the deep past alone but relatively late in its history. The discovery, which lends weight to long-held suspicions about a feature called Wright Mons, invites a quiet recalibration of how cold, distant worlds grow old, because the warmth that once lifted slush thr
Scientists Find Evidence of Massive Ice Volcanoes on Pluto, Some Rising 7 Km High
A song of ice and ice, sculpted by slush on a dwarf planet
Mark
So what exactly did this team find on Pluto?
Mimi
Evidence of relatively recent ice volcanoes, including the suspected giant called Wright Mons. Some reach about 7 kilometers high.
Mark
Why does the lack of craters matter?
Mimi
Craters pile up over time, so few of them suggests the surface is younger. The slush seems to have reshaped the ground fairly recently in Pluto's history.
Luke
Careful with 'recently.' That's relative. The reporting says relatively recent in the dwarf planet's history, not a date.
Mark
Fair. And the heat question?
Mimi
That's the deeper puzzle. Volcanoes need a heat source, and the researchers say Pluto either held heat better or had more of it than expected before New Horizons.
Luke
Notice that's an inference from the surface features. The article doesn't say which explanation is right, or what the heat source actually is.
Mark
And NASA's earlier hunch about Wright Mons?
Mimi
The new study suggests it was right. NASA had said it would be the largest such feature in the outer solar system if confirmed.
Luke
'Suggests' is the word to keep. It's strong evidence, not a landing on the volcano.
Mark
Is Pluto alone in this?
Mimi
No, Ceres and Titan show signs too, but the authors call Pluto unique among visited places.
O Pulso
- Some ice volcanoes on Pluto rise roughly 7 kilometers above the terrain around them, a scale that startles researchers who expected a dormant, frozen world.
- Sparse impact craters in the cryovolcanic region suggest the surface was reshaped recently, which unsettles the assumption that Pluto's geology was settled long ago.
- The team is working to explain where the internal heat came from, weighing whether Pluto retained more warmth than models predicted or generated it anew.
- The study, published in Nature Communications, lands as a challenge to current models of late-stage dwarf planet evolution, with scientists now expected to revise their accounts of how small icy worlds cool.
Far beyond the orbit of Neptune, a small world that was once counted among the planets has turned out to carry a more restless past than anyone expected. A team led by Kelsi Singer of the Southwest Research Institute, drawing on images gathered during NASA's New Horizons flyby in 2015, now reports that Pluto built ice volcanoes not in the deep past alone but relatively late in its history. The discovery, which lends weight to long-held suspicions about a feature called Wright Mons, invites a quiet recalibration of how cold, distant worlds grow old, because the warmth that once lifted slush through the crust had to come from somewhere.
A team of planetary scientists has reported that Pluto, the small and distant world stripped of its planet status years ago, resurfaced parts of itself with volcanoes made not of molten rock but of ice. The study, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, was led by Kelsi Singer of the Southwest Research Institute, and its evidence comes from NASA's New Horizons mission, which flew past Pluto in 2015 and returned detailed views of the dwarf planet.
Those early images had already hinted at cryovolcanism, the icy cousin of Earth's fiery volcanoes, in which water-rich material softens into slush and rises through the crust. One candidate had drawn particular attention: Wright Mons, a feature comparable in size to Mauna Loa, which NASA said would be the largest such structure found in the outer solar system if confirmed. The new work supports that suspicion. Some of the volcanoes rise about 7 kilometers above their surroundings, and the region holds few impact craters, which usually signals a younger surface.
That youthfulness raises a puzzle. Ice volcanoes need energy to operate, and the researchers argue Pluto's interior must have kept more heat, or produced more of it, than anyone had anticipated, allowing its icy materials to move well into its later history. The team also released a perspective view of the region, offering a bird's-eye glimpse of the landscape.
Pluto is not alone in showing such activity, since signs of cryovolcanism have also appeared on Ceres and Saturn's moon Titan. Still, the authors maintain that Pluto's ice volcanoes, alongside its unusual surface and atmosphere, set it apart. The findings suggest that models of how small, cold worlds age may need revising.
A team of planetary scientists has reported evidence that Pluto, the small, distant world long stripped of its planet status, resurfaced parts of itself with volcanoes made of ice. The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, was led by Kelsi Singer, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute.
The data behind the finding comes from NASA's New Horizons mission, whose spacecraft flew past Pluto in 2015 and sent back detailed views of the dwarf planet. Those images and measurements had already hinted at cryovolcanism, an icy counterpart to the hot, molten volcanism familiar on Earth. Instead of rock melting and erupting, the idea is that water-ice-rich material turns slushy and rises to the surface.
One feature in particular had caught NASA's eye: a suspected cryovolcano called Wright Mons, described as comparable in size to Mauna Loa. NASA had said that if confirmed, it would be the largest such feature discovered in the outer solar system. The new study suggests that hunch was right.
The volcanoes are large. Some rise about 7 kilometers, or 4.3 miles, above the surrounding terrain. They sit in a region with few impact craters, which matters because craters accumulate over time. A surface with few of them is generally a younger one, so the sparse cratering points to slush having reshaped the ground relatively recently in Pluto's history.
That raises the question of where the heat came from. Ice volcanoes need an energy source to work. In their paper, the researchers wrote that the existence of such massive features suggests Pluto's interior structure and evolution allow either better retention of heat or more heat overall than anyone anticipated before New Horizons. That, they said, allowed water-ice-rich materials to be mobilized late in Pluto's history.
The team also released a perspective view of the cryovolcanic region. It gives a sense of how the area would look from a bird's-eye vantage, as if a camera had been sent down to hover above it.
Pluto is not the only place where scientists have seen signs of this kind of activity. Evidence of cryovolcanism has also turned up on the dwarf planet Ceres and on Saturn's moon Titan. Even so, the study's authors say Pluto's ice volcanoes, together with its distinct surface and atmospheric conditions, make it unique among the visited places in the solar system.
The implication is that models of how small, cold, distant worlds age may need adjusting, since Pluto appears to have held onto or produced more internal heat than expected.
Citações Notáveis
The existence of these massive features suggests Pluto's interior allows either enhanced retention of heat or more heat overall than anticipated before New Horizons.— Study authors, Nature Communications (paraphrased)
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