New images taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft revealed that Pluto contains ice volcanoes, as the snapshots show an area of the dwarf planet containing volcanoes up to 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) high that were active “relatively recently”. On ice volcanoes in several other places in our solar system, including on Saturn’s moon “Titan” and on the dwarf planet Ceres.
According to the British newspaper, “Daily Mail”, this discovery on Pluto comes as a surprise, as previous research indicated that the interior of the dwarf planet does not produce enough heat to drive volcanic activity.
In the study, researchers from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, researchers analyzed images taken by New Horizons of the southwest region of the Sputnik Planetia ice sheet.
This ice sheet covers an ancient basin about 620 miles (1,000 km) wide and is characterized by large elevations with irregular sides.
Their analysis of the images indicates that the area is likely covered with ice volcanoes, consisting primarily of water ice. The glacier volcanoes range in height from a few miles to 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) in length and are 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) wide to 93 miles (150 kilometers) ), with some merging to form larger structures.
It is the size of the largest ice volcano, known as Wright Monsthe same size as Mauna Loa in Hawaii, one of the largest volcanoes on Earth.
Also, based on the topography in the area, the researchers suggest that multiple volcanic eruptions are likely in the past, although the exact timeline remains unclear.