The sea in Pluto’s underworld

The sea in Pluto’s underworld

Pluto and Charon. Illustration of the surface of Pluto with its moon Charon in the sky at upper left. An ice volcano is erupting at center left. Pluto orbits some 6 billion kilometers from the Sun (centre right). In 2015, it will be visited for the first time by a spacecraft from Earth, with the New Horizons spacecraft flyby due to take place on July 14, 2015. Pluto is just 2300 kilometers in diameter, far smaller than the Moon. Charon is about 1200 kilometers in diameter and less than 20, 000 kilometers from Pluto. Pluto, a dwarf planet, is considered to be a Kuiper Belt Object, not a true planet.

When the distant dwarf planet formed, it not only had plenty of ice, but also plenty of heat for an ocean of meltwater. This deep sea may still exist today.

by THORSTEN DAMBECK

On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto at ten times the speed of a bullet. It was the first and so far only time that the dwarf planet received a terrestrial visit and this exotic world was thus explored in detail. Since then, scientists have meticulously analyzed the measurement data from this encounter that were radioed back to Earth over many months. Recently they could even do some of Pluto's mysterious deep sea

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