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Huge new Pluto image shows potential ice volcano

18 Dec 2015

A series of new Pluto images have shown its cratered western plains and forbidding mountains in remarkable detail.

The zig-zag image shows a huge region to the west of where New Horizons' flew over Pluto's surface, taking in the dark area informally known as Cthulhu Regio and the potentially cryovolcanic Wright Mons. '

More than half the data collected by New Horizons on its Pluto flyby is yet to make it back to Earth, but what we've seen so far is already radically altering our understanding of the distant world.

Evidence has been found of vast glacial activity that appears to be continuing to this day, creating smooth regions alongside Pluto's more cratered, ancient landscapes. Networks of eroded valleys, much like those found on Earth, have also been found along with potential cryovolcanoes.


Earlier this month Nasa released a mosaic of the "sharpest views" of Pluto captured by New Horizons. The colour in those pictures, captured in near-infrared, red and blue, was added to the original images after they were taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera. The images themselves were captured 25 minutes before New Horizons' passing of Pluto.

Each pixel in those pictures represents about 250-280 feet (77-85 meters) of the dwarf planet's surface.


Data sent back by New Horizons has also revealed that the informally named Sputnik Planum, the 620-mile wide basin that makes up Pluto's 'heart', is made from a deep layer of solid nitrogen and other exotic ices. It is now thought this layer of ice may be several miles thick.

It is also believed that glacial activity in the region is driven by evaporation of this nitrogen, which then condenses on higher terrain before flowing back to the basin.

New Horizons has also been providing data on the make-up of Pluto's tenuous atmospheric haze. Rising several kilometres above Pluto's surface, the haze was spectacularly captured in one of the most memorable images of the dwarf planet.

The New Horizons science team is currently analysing data to work out where the haze comes from, why it forms in layers and how it varies across Pluto.