A new study suggests Pluto is not as cold as we think after identifying ice volcanoes accompanied by internal heating and a subsurface ocean. Pluto was at one point considered the ninth planet in our own solar system but in 2006 it was reclassified as a dwarf planet. In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew by gathering information for astronomers.
When the spacecraft was 7,800 kilometres above Pluto-s surface, it revealed a world unlike anything we’d ever seen. The dwarf featured flat plains, mountains, and even very thin atmosphere. For decades, most artistic depictions and pictures of Pluto were of a stagnant, blue, icy world.
One of the most intriguing discoveries is an image that suggested the possibility of ice volcanoes, also known as cryovolcanoes. Ice volcanoes aren’t like anything here on Earth, they fuel off water ice and other elements like nitrogen, methane and carbon dioxide.
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