TASS, June 22. Pictures of the New Horizons probe showed that in the first age of its existence it was warm enough for that on its surface could be an ocean of liquid water. The results of a study in which the scientists came to this conclusion, published the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.
“We have long thought over the course of the thermal evolution of Pluto and as the ocean in its depths could survive until the present time. Images of the surface of the planet obtained by the probe New Horizons, helped us to test the predictions of different theoretical models that describe this process,” — said one of the authors, Professor University of California Santa Cruz.
the New Horizons Probe, created by a team of engineers and planetary scientists under the leadership of Alan stern, left Earth in January 2006. In mid-July 2015, he reached the environs of Pluto, flying just 13 thousands of miles away from him and getting lots of pictures of its surface. These pictures bring the humanity first saw the famous “heart” of Pluto — the plain of the Satellite, as well as traces of icy rivers and volcanoes.
This discovery, New Horizons has generated a lot of controversy and debate among planetary scientists trying to understand how such a structure could arise, and find out how Pluto looked in the past.
stern, Nimmo and their colleague Carver Person, another planetary scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz, closer to the answer to this question. They compared the data from the cameras and instruments New Horizons with the results of calculations that relied on different models for the formation and equipment of the subsurface of the dwarf planet.
Many scientists believe that Pluto was originally a “cold”. In this case, it means that it was formed from a relatively cool inventory of ice and dust, which are later warmed up in a result of decays of radioactive substances in the bowels of Pluto and its gravitational interaction with Charon. Due to this, a few hundred million years after the formation of the dwarf planet formed inside of the ocean.
Subsequently, the temperature fell, a large part of water and other volatiles frozen, and formed a liquid layer that separates the ice shell of Pluto from its rocky core.
“If Pluto were initially cold, the surface was compressed. On its surface were to remain traces of this process. Otherwise, it would continue to expand after his ocean began to freeze, due which was to be other geological traces. We found plenty of evidence in favor of the extension of the surface of Pluto, and no indication that they are ever squeezed”, — Rrasskazal Person.
In particular, scientists suggest that its source could be the fall of large asteroids, which is the progenitor of Pluto could collide in the first period of his life.
If this were true, then other large dwarf planet on the outskirts of the Solar system, including Makemake and Eris was formed in a similar way.
Their study, as scientists hope, will help to test this theory and to understand whether the under-ice oceans so far from the Sun the planets to Harbor life.
