Pluto is almost entirely covered in water ice, and we know about it for quite some time. The first pictures sent by the NASA probe “New horizons” after the flyby to this dwarf planet last summer, we saw huge mountains, which most likely consists of water ice.
Now scientists suspect that these miniature mountains of ice drifting on the broad, flat plains known as the Plains of the Satellite and located in the bright region in the shape of a heart.
According to a press release from NASA:
“Since the density of water ice is lower than nitrogen ice, we believe that these water icebergs floating in a frozen sea of nitrogen, like icebergs in the Arctic ocean on Earth.”
Some of the chains such ice forms stretched to 20 kilometers in length.
Although it is very exciting to discover water ice beyond Earth, this finding does not increase the chances of Pluto on the availability of life — the planet is too far from the Sun and too cold to maintain liquid water or any known form of life. However, the research results shed more light on the conditions on the surface of this mysterious alien world on the border of our Solar system.