Unusual Pits Discovered on Pluto
Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins U. APL, SwRI
Explanation: Why are there unusual pits on Pluto? The
indentations were discovered during the
New Horizons spacecraft's flyby of the
dwarf planet in July. The largest pits span a kilometer across and dip tens of meters into a lake of
frozen nitrogen, a lake that sprawls across
Sputnik Planum, part of the famous light-colored heart-shaped region named
Tombaugh Regio. Although most pits in the Solar System are created by impact craters,
these depressions look different -- many are similarly sized, densely packed, and aligned. Rather, it is thought that something has caused
these specific areas of ice to
sublimate and evaporate away. In fact, the lack of
overlying impact craters indicates these pits formed relatively recently. Even though the robotic
New Horizons is now off to a
new destination, it continues to beam back to Earth
new images and data from its
dramatic encounter with
Pluto.
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