Smithsonian Voices Solar System Chatter
Slowly Bubbling Pluto
June 2nd, 2016, 9:41AM
/ BY
Heather Goss
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Scientists think they have an explanation for
Pluto’s unusual “heart” feature. Using data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft and computer modeling, it seems that the plain is made of
cells that are churning due to a slow thermal convection from a layer of nitrogen ice underneath the surface, according to a paper published in
Nature today. The cells are around 10 to 30 miles wide and turn over at a rate of about 500,000 years—pretty fast in geological terms.
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