Pluto's Pits Show Up In Amazing NASA Image
Pluto is still a star, going by NASA's recent images. Some unusual pits on its surface have now come to light. An amazing image was captured by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.
"It seems that the more we see of Pluto, the more fascinating it gets. With its prominent heart-shaped feature, icy mountains, and "snakeskin" terrain, Pluto has already surprised New Horizons scientists with the variety and complexity of its surface features," NASA said.
The NASA image exhibits an "enigmatic cellular pattern" on the left side, some collections of tiny pits and troughs at the bottom as well as the upper right. This area was called the 'Sputnik Planum', which has volatile ice components, such as solid nitrogen, according to HNGN.
"Pluto is weird, in a good way," said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. "The pits, and the way they're aligned, provide clues about the ice flow and the exchange of volatiles between the surface and atmosphere, and the science team is working hard to understand what physical processes are at play here."
The sublimation or evaporation of the ice has resulted in the formation of the pits. However, the reason for their strange shapes and alignments is puzzling. Due to the lack of impact craters in the images, Sputnik Planum is "relatively geologically youthful".
