Pluto was long considered the ninth planet in our Solar System. But in 2006 this frozen world almost at the limit of the heat of our Sun, It was no longer considered a planet by the International Astronomical Union and inaugurated a new category of science: Tiny planets.
Scientists know that Pluto’s surface is extremely cold, so it is unlikely that life could exist there. At such cold temperatures, water, vital to life as we know it, looks essentially rocky. However, Pluto’s interior is warmer and some think there could even be an ocean inside.
Pluto has an equatorial diameter of approximately 2,377 kilometers. That is, it is approximately 1/5 the width of the Earth. From an average distance of approximately 5.9 billion kilometers, Pluto is approximately 39 times farther than Earth from the Sun. From this distance, it takes sunlight 5.5 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto.
The study published in the journal Icarus showed that this dwarf planet, which has a thin atmosphere composed mainly of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide, could have liquid inside.
That’s why the doctor Alex Nguyenspecialist in Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at the University of Washington and Patrick McGovern of the Lunar and Planetary Institute of Houston carried out a recent investigation where they stated that there is an ocean of water in a liquid state under the surface of Pluto.
That claim could be made using mathematical models that could prove the existence of liquid beneath its surface, after NASA scientists analyzed cracks and bulges in the basin’s ice. Sputnik Planitia of Pluto.
The basis of the study was the visit made by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) when it launched the mission New Horizons on January 19, 2006, an unmanned probe that had the objective of flying over Pluto to take photographs, measurements and studies of the solar system.
The first images were obtained seven years later and in 2015 it recorded its closest approach, after passing just 12,500 kilometers from the dwarf planet to take a closer look at the ocean that likely covers the planet under a thick layer of nitrogen, methane and water ice.
The probe also measured the temperature of the planet’s surface which is about -232 C, a temperature so cold that even gases like nitrogen and methane freeze. Therefore, water should not have any possibility of being in a liquid state.
“Pluto is a small body. It should have lost almost all of its heat shortly after its formation, so basic calculations would suggest that it is frozen to its core,” said Nguyen, who is conducting his doctoral research at the University of Washington as an Olin Chancellor Fellow and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow.
But in recent years, prominent scientists, including William B. McKinnon, professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences in Arts and Sciences, have gathered evidence that suggests Pluto likely contains an ocean of liquid water beneath the ice. That inference came from several lines of evidence, including Pluto’s cryovolcanoes, which spew ice and water vapor. Although there is still some debate, “It is now generally accepted that Pluto has an ocean,” Nguyen said.
New study probes ocean in greater detail, even if it’s too deep beneath the ice for scientists to see. Nguyen and McGovern created mathematical models to explain the cracks and bulges in the ice covering Pluto’s Sputnik Platina basin. the site of a meteorite collision billions of years ago. His calculations suggest that the ocean in this area exists beneath a 40 to 80 km thick layer of water ice, a protective blanket that likely prevents the interior ocean from freezing.
They also calculated the probable density or ocean salinity based on the fractures in the ice above. They estimate that Pluto’s ocean is, at most, about 8% denser than Earth’s seawater, or about the same as Utah’s Great Salt Lake. If you could somehow reach Pluto’s ocean, you could float effortlessly.
As Nguyen explained, That level of density would explain the abundance of fractures observed on the surface. If the ocean were significantly less dense, the ice sheet would collapse, creating many more fractures than actually observed. If the ocean were much denser, there would be fewer fractures. “We estimate a sort of Goldilocks zone where the layer density and thickness are right,” he said.
Space agencies have no plans to return to Pluto anytime soon, so many of its mysteries will remain for future generations of researchers. Whether it’s called a planet, a planetoid or just one of the many objects in the far reaches of the solar system, it’s worth studying, Nguyen said. “From my perspective, it’s a planet.”
Pluto is orbited by five known moons, the largest of which is Charon, which is about half the size of Pluto itself, making it the largest satellite relative to the planet it orbits in our solar system. This is why Pluto and Charon are often called “double planets”.
