Images of the dwarf planet’s far side are revealing possible signs of liquid water, mysterious shards of ice and new theories for the frigid world’s birth.
When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft zipped past Pluto in 2015, it showed a world that was much more dynamic than anyone had imagined. The dwarf planet hosts icy nitrogen cliffs that resemble the rugged coast of Norway, and giant shards of methane ice that soar to the height of skyscrapers. Cracks deeper than the Grand Canyon scar the surface, while icy volcanoes rise taller than Mount Everest. In one part of the distant orb, the spacecraft’s cameras captured a giant heart-shaped feature that caused a collective swoon among countless fans on Earth.
“I expected Pluto to be a scientific wonderland, but it did not have to be so beautiful,” says Leslie Young, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and a deputy project scientist on the New Horizons mission.
Although scientists caught that first jaw-dropping glimpse nearly five years ago, they are still seeing images of the world for the first time.
https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-020-02082-1/index.html
