The first dwarf planet came to light in the last hours and confirms what we thought: an impressive amount of ice covering the surface of the mysterious globe. The probe New Horizons captured high resolution images of Pluto in his nine-year journey to the farthest planet from Earth in the Solar System.
However, that first picture HD also reveals something else. Pluto has a mountain range made entirely of ice. Something like a giant glacier peaks 3350 meters . The photographs taken by New Horizons also possible to determine at first the geological activity is still ongoing on the planet and its satellites, Charon and Hydra .
The scientists were surprised by the permanent geological activity that takes place on Pluto. The planet, researchers from NASA, is still forming. “Now I have an isolated planet showing activity after 4.5 billion years,” Alan Stern , principal investigator for New Horizons. “This is one of the youngest areas we’ve seen in the solar system,” said Jeff Moore of the NASA team.
” At temperatures of Pluto, ice behaves more like rocks, “he said Bill McKinnon , Washington University, Saint Louis. This would explain that even though the planet’s surface is composed mainly of methane and nitrogen, these materials would not be enough to form the mountain range. The peaks, then they are formed by ice “Rocky”, the scientists showed.
The NASA will now have the next 16 months to study in depth all the information and pictures New Horizons was able to capture in their space trip.
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