Not only mountains: in the middle of the ‘heart’ of Pluto are large icy plains that were formed about 100 million years ago and that still could be shaped by geological processes in place. This is revealed by the new and exceptional close-up images taken by the probe New Horizons and disseminated by NASA.
This fascinating region, named ‘Sputnik Planum’ (plain Sputnik) in honor of the first artificial satellite, has an area fragmented in blocks about 20 kilometers wide and separated by shallow furrows. In some of these channels they are observed darker materials, while others are drawn from groups of hills.
Elsewhere, the surface is marked by small holes that may have been formed by a process of sublimation, also on the Earth, the ice turns directly into gas. NASA experts think that these irregular segments that form the icy plains may have formed by contraction of the material surface (just like the mudslides when they go against drying), or by convection, like wax in a lava lamp .
The icy plains of Pluto are then dark streaks several kilometers long and aligned in the same direction that might have been produced by the wind.
Among the data sent to Earth by New Horizons stand also the first information about the atmosphere of the dwarf planet: rich in nitrogen, it appears to be quite extensive. Stripped away by the solar wind, would form a ‘tail’ of dense and cold ionized gas that extend for thousands of kilometers behind Pluto.
No comments:
Post a Comment