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Pluto\u2019s northern Sputnik Planitia glacier (in the western or left side of Pluto\u2019s bright heart) is shown here in a color mosaic made from New Horizons imagery. Credit: NASA\/Johns Hopkins APL\/SwRI <\/p>\n
\u201cPluto never stops surprising us, and this new result certainly does that,\u201d Alan Stern, the study\u2019s lead author and New Horizons\u2019s principal investigator, said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cIn addition to suggesting that liquids have recently expressed themselves on Pluto\u2019s surface, it also suggests a new kind of time-variable feature on Pluto.\u201d<\/p>\n The right spot <\/p>\n According to the paper, the area that came to be called the Sputnik Planitia caught astronomers\u2019 interest even before New Horizons. Hubble\u2019s observations and other data indicated that one specific section of Pluto had an unusually bright terrain. This was one important reason that, when New Horizons made its Pluto flyby in 2015, Sputnik Planitia was deemed a primary target<\/a> for high-resolution observations.<\/p>\n Astronomers\u2019 assumptions were on the mark. New Horizons\u2019s images of the region showed unique patterns of dark linear patterns, whose albedo, or fraction of diffusely reflected sunlight, was \u201cremarkably close to that of the Earth\u2019s polar ice sheets,\u201d the researchers explained in the paper. However, Pluto\u2019s thin atmosphere, as we observe it today, makes liquid nitrogen rain physically impossible, the researchers explained in the statement.<\/p>\n Inklings of nitrogen <\/p>\n As a result, prior analysis on Sputnik Planitia, including those Stern was involved in, assumed that there were some ancient liquid flows. The latest paper, on the other hand, evaluates the hypothesis that there is currently or recently liquid nitrogen below the glacier. For the study, the team ran computer simulations to confirm it was feasible for liquid nitrogen to push upward from beneath the glacier and form the distinctive patterns we see on Pluto\u2019s surface today.<\/p>\n The researchers found that it was possible for liquid nitrogen to travel up small conduits, like lava or geyser tubes, and remain liquid long enough to create dark patterns on the nitrogen glacier. That said, Pluto, due to its sheer distance, remains an enigma to astronomers, and future observations may or may not further this hypothesis.<\/p>\n \u201cPluto has many unique terrains seen nowhere else in the solar system, and this area of Sputnik Planitia is one of them,\u201d added Kelsi Singer, a study co-author and a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute. \u201cIts surface provides a different set of conditions compared to what we are used to on Earth, and exploring that allows us to better understand how materials behave in environments that are difficult to produce on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n