A part of Pluto that researchers believe was formed from the eruption of ice volcanoes unique to the dwarf Earth and in the solar system, new research shows.
NASA Hou Horizons mission, released in 2006, took detailed images of the surface of Pluto, a dwarf planet and the largest planet on Earth. Kuiper belt. Now, a new study is looking at photographs of an area that contained two large mounds that scientists believe are. ice volcano. In the study, the researchers concluded that the crust around these hills was formed by the re -creation of ice volcanoes, or volcanoes.
What is seen is that these volcanoes are always active and water, or something like that, is flowing or not flowing under the surface. Pluto. The new version shows that Pluto is much hotter than scientists think. According to more research, scientists say their work could increase the likelihood of life under Pluto’s surface.
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The researchers analyzed images of an area covered by two large volcanoes, Wright Mons and Piccard Mons, which scientists consider to be cryovolcanoes. Mount Wright Mons is 2.5 to 3 miles (4 to 5 kilometers) high and about 90 miles (150 km) wide, while Piccard Mons is about 4 miles (7 km) high and 150 miles ( 250 km) wide.
Volcanoes are thought to have very deep peaks – that is, at the top Wright Mons The depth was as high as the height of the mountains. Many parts of the area are of a different kind, hummocky or “hummocky”, made from people who don’t eat food. The researchers believe that small mounds, made from ice volcanoes, can accumulate over a long period of time to form these two large mounds.
“There’s no other place on Pluto like this earth,” Kelsi Singer, an earth scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado and lead research officer, told Space.com. “And it’s very different from the solar system.”
Unlike the other parts of Pluto, this area is not small in volcanoes, indicating that the crust was formed during the Earth’s period. Because of the lack of volcanoes, the area is no more than one or two billion years old, with some areas less than 200 million years old, Singer said.
In some ways, cryovolcanoes are similar to volcanoes Earth, because most of Pluto’s skin is made of ice, and the temperature on Pluto is just below the ice. That is, liquid water, or something like a small amount of water or mobile, such as magma on Earth, rises to the surface after lava and ice. , or hardness, in a cage.
“It’s probably not going to be full of water – it’s probably more like a slushy one where you’ve got some water and some ice, or it’s more like a stream of water,” Singer said, which can be “like stupid ketchup or putty. ” The ice may be more solid and can flow.
“We all know snow can flow because there is snow flowing on Earth,” he said.
Although scientists are not sure how cryovolcanic activity works on Pluto, it can be exploited by the radiogenic heat generated by the decay of radioactive material in the dwarf earth. Variety is one of the main sources of heat on Earth, even though Pluto does not exist papa tectonics, the complex system of landform movement that creates geologic activity on Earth. Scientists call geologic activity such as that on Pluto “general tectonics,” which can produce features such as rock faults but no tectonic plates.
Pluto’s volcanoes show some similarities to the volcanoes on Earth, low -lying volcanoes that arise from the constant collection of lava flowing into people’s homes. (Consider the Volcanoes of the Island of Hawaiʻibefore volcanoes such as Mount Saint Helens or Vesuvius.) However, volcanoes are usually protected from extreme eruptions, unlike the scientists who have worked on Pluto.
Some volcanoes on Earth and in other planets have a heart between them called a caldera, which is formed when a new volcano collapses into the space left by the elements. until he had vomited out. Wright Mons worries, however, that the volcano is very deep, is the largest volcano on Earth and looks like Mauna Loa. caldera, even though the two houses sound the same, Singer said.
Many researchers have no idea about these phenomena, how they formed, and how cryovolcanism worked on Pluto. The idea that water could live under Pluto’s surface would extend the life span of Pluto’s life from ignorance to better. research believing that Pluto was hot when it was first created and that it could be found water under its ice skin.
“I think it’s better to swear, and maybe there’s some heat and water, water near the skin,” Singer said. “But there are some big problems for unhealthy microbes that want to live on Pluto.”
The research was described in a paper published on Tuesday (March 29) in the journal Nature Communications.
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