Humm maybe I was right,I posted some thought about Pluto and one of these is that Pluto would have volcano to shot out water and ice..I might had been right!
A possible ice
volcano on Pluto (visible at center) is seen in this NASA image,
captured by the New Horizons spacecraft, released on Nov. 9, 2015. The
feature, called Wright Mons, is a strange feature 100 miles wide and
13,000 feet high with a summit depression at its center. New Horizons
scientists suspect Wright Mons and another mountain may be signs of
cryovolcanic eruptions on Pluto.
Images from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft
have identified two peaks that tower nearly 4 miles (6 kilometers) high
over the surface of the dwarf planet, and scientists say the peaks'
physical features suggest they might be volcanoes.
A tiny, icy world at the edge of the solar system, Pluto remained
largely invisible to scientists until July 2015, when the New Horizons
space probe flew past it, giving humanity its first good look at the dwarf planet's surface.
Before the New Horizons flyby, most scientists thought Pluto would
prove to be too small to maintain the internal heat needed to power
geological processes such as glacier flows and volcanism, according to
scientists at the news conference. But the fast-moving spacecraft
revealed a far younger surface than scientists had expected, suggesting
that geological processes are taking place on Pluto, and that something
must be keeping things warm beneath the surface.
Two enormous mountains,
spanning hundreds of miles across, sit at the southern edge of the
heart-shaped region on the surface of Pluto. The mountains have been
informally named Wright Mons and Picard Mons, and at their crests, each
peak hosts a central crater, reminiscent of peaks called "shield volcanoes" on Earth.
"Whatever they are, they're definitely weird" — 'volcanoes' is the
least weird hypothesis at the moment," White said at the news
conference.
Although the features bear a strong similarity to volcanoes, New
Horizons researcher Jeff Moore, of NASA Ames Research Field, said in an
earlier session that they were not yet ready to conclusively pronounce
that there is evidence for cryovolcanism on Pluto.
"These look suspicious, and we're looking very closely," Moore said.
Scientists don't yet know what could be generating the heat inside
Pluto necessary to create a volcano on the surface. One possibility,
also presented at the conference, is that an ammonia-water slurry mantle
lies beneath the surface, according to a statement from AAS. The
research, performed by graduate student Alex Trowbridge and professor
Jay Melosh, of Purdue University in Indiana, suggests that, as cooler
material sinks through the subsurface layers, hot material might rise,
leading to geological activity that could include cryovolcanism.
Another possibility, which White focused on, has to do with a gradually
cooling rocky core, originally heated during the dwarf planet's
formation. The heat required to melt ices would be significantly lower
than those required to release rock, allowing the gradual mobilization
of material that could, in theory, erupt through a volcano.
Though the term "cryovolcanism" has been applied to other objects in
the solar system, White stressed that the features on Pluto are unique. Saturn's frozen moon Enceladus
is known for spewing material from its southern pole, but the source
comes from fissures in the ground rather than mountainous features. And
while cryovolcanism has been hypothesized to exist on Titan,
another Saturn moon, White pointed out that those cryovolcanoes were
identified by radar and are still under debate. Pluto's features, by
contrast, are clearly visible and bear stark similarities to Earth's
volcanoes.
"This is the first time where we see what seem to be tall volcanic edifices," White said.
The two slopes are lightly cratered, White told Space.com, which
suggests that they are younger than the northern terrains of Pluto,
though not nearly as young as the "heart" of Pluto,
Sputnik Planum. Scientists aren't certain of the mountains'
composition, though White suggested it could be nitrogen ice. The thin
atmosphere would likely allow for the fluidization of the material
across the surface.
The two mountains lay along the day-night line of Pluto when they were
imaged by New Horizons. Picard Mons, the larger of the two features,
lies in the twilight region, so it may not be possible to understand its
composition with current data. But White expressed hope that upcoming
data may reveal secrets about the composition of the more brightly lit
Wright Mons.
Even more exciting is the possibility that the two might be part of a
larger field of volcanoes. White said that the close proximity of the
two features might indicate that even more cryovolcanoes exist beyond
the spacecraft's field of view. However, there is no way to spot them
using data from the New Horizons flyby.
"We'll have to go back in a hundred years and see," White said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTT03II_TYE
ReplyDeleteGod done it...For us to figure thing out.