Pluto, once classified as a planet in our solar system, still occupies the same position it always did, but it no longer holds the status of a planet. Nonetheless, this change hasn’t halted our endeavors to study it.
Thanks to NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, we received the most detailed image of Pluto less than a decade ago. Scientists are currently scrutinizing the vast collection of data and images gathered by New Horizons, leading to the discovery of a new type of volcano known as a ‘cryovolcano,’ which erupts water and ice.
Initially mistaken for an impact crater, Kiladze Caldera, the newly-identified volcano, has raised questions due to its unusual characteristics. Typically, impact craters are formed on a planetary surface when a meteorite collides with it.
Dale Cruikshank, a planetary scientist at NASA, serves as the lead author of the study, according to Newsweek. Prior to this discovery, scientists had suspicions that Kiladze Caldera was not an impact crater due to its peculiar structure. It is encircled by water ice, a substance usually concealed beneath Pluto’s methane snow and matter from the planet’s ‘smog.’
Furthermore, the research team uncovered signs of ammonia mixed within the water ice. Ammonia, by lowering the freezing point of water, allows it to flow as liquid cryo-lava on Pluto’s surface.
The presence of water ice surrounding Kiladze suggests that this cryovolcano is relatively young, or at the very least, it has experienced an eruption in the recent past. According to Cruikshank, “We estimate that the age of Kiladze and its surroundings (since the last eruption) is only a few million years.”
Pluto boasts other icy volcanoes, such as Wright Mons and Piccard Mons.
This study has reportedly been published in the journal Icarus and is available on the pre-print database arXiv.
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