Bless Pluto’s heart.
When NASA's New Horizons spacecraft first snapped photos of an unusual heart-shaped scar on Erika bella porn movie Le bambole del Fuhrer (1995)Pluto in 2015, the new view bolstered theories that the frigid world harbored an underground ocean.
Scientists thought the left side of the bright white heart, or Tombaugh Regio, formed after another planetary body crashed into it. The spacecollision may have allowed a deep reservoir of water to rise up into the chasm, intermixing with nitrogen gas from Pluto’s atmosphere, where it condensed and froze there.
But new research on the heart suggests there might not be an ocean lurking within Pluto after all. If so, this discovery would arguably add to Pluto's list of 21st century embarrassments. Its demotion in 2006 from 9th planet in the solar system to dwarf planet lives in infamy, though Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs apparently just signed a law making Pluto the official state planet — facts and consensus, be darned.
SEE ALSO: NASA finds Earth's moon didn't need hundreds of years to form. Try hours.This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Astrophysicists used advanced computer simulations to try to recreate the cataclysmic event. The team was able to demonstrate that an enormous-yet-slow strike from another planetary body could have caused the heart if it were a glancing blow rather than head-on. The findings, led by the University of Bern in Switzerland, were publishedthis month in Nature Astronomy.
Through computer models, the team learned that a collision in Pluto's ancient history, before it was fully formed, could have caused the left side of the heart, a feature known as Sputnik Planitia. This side is roughly one-quarter the size of Europe, according to the study. The impactor would have been about as wide as Tennessee.
The researchers attribute the heart's bright appearance to white nitrogen ice that moves heat like a convection oven and smooths out the surface. The team thinks the nitrogen would have collected in the chasm quickly after the crash because of its lower altitude.
The other side of the heart is covered by a similar layer of nitrogen ice, albeit much thinner. Though its origin is not well understood, scientists believe it's linked to Sputnik Planitia, too.
"Pluto's core is so cold that the rocks remained very hard and did not melt despite the heat of the impact," said Harry Ballantyne, the lead author, in a statement, "and thanks to the angle of impact and the low velocity, the core of the impactor did not sink into Pluto's core, but remained intact as a splat on it."
The core of the assailant that hit Pluto is probably lying beneath Sputnik Planitia, in a "never quite digested" form, added Erik Asphaug, a co-author from the University of Arizona.
The new simulation presents an intriguing conundrum on the inner workings of Pluto. Physics should cause that depression to slowly move toward the nearest pole, but Sputnik Planitia sits near Pluto's equator. Previous theories supposed that Pluto's icy shell would be thinner at the impact site, causing a liquid underground ocean to bulge and drift toward the equator.
But the new study offers a different explanation that doesn't require a subsurface ocean. In the simulations, the impact digs up all of Pluto's primitive mantle. When the impactor's core spattered onto Pluto's core, it created an excess mass of material at the site that could have caused the depression to move toward the equator, according to the paper.
Since New Horizon's close encounter with Pluto nine years ago, experts have come to think of the dwarf planet as much more scientifically valuable. Rather than a cold, featureless ball in the outer reaches of the solar system, the spacecraft images showed a geologically diverse world, with mountains, ice sheets, pits, cliffs, fissures, and valleys. But if it isn't an ocean world, there's still much more to learn about its past.
"The formation of Sputnik Planitia provides a critical window into the earliest periods of Pluto's history," said Adeene Denton, a co-author from the University of Arizona, in a statement. "By expanding our investigation to include more unusual formation scenarios, we've learned some totally new possibilities for Pluto's evolution, which could apply to other Kuiper Belt objects as well."
Apple was never going to 'win' its WWDC keynoteWWDC 2025 rumor: MacOS Tahoe might run on fewer Macs than expectedHow to download iOS 26 — start testing the beta todayPlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds MiniBest headphones deal: Save $100 on Beats Solo 4Top 10 Best MMOsThe viral TikTok dog who stole the internet's heart is now ready for adoptionThe best Netflix movies of 2025 now streaming11 Tech Products That Were Supposed to Fail... But Didn't6 essentials for travelling in styleLong Live the Mouse and Keyboard, a Great Way to Control Video GamesBest streaming deal: Save 15% on the Google StreamerEcovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni: $300 off at AmazonIn Hindsight: Some of the Worst CPU/GPUs Purchases of 2017Apple's watchOS 26 comes with an AINYT Connections Sports Edition hints and answers for June 9: Tips to solve Connections #259WWDC 2025: Apple macOS 26 Tahoe gives you more screen spaceApple's iOS 26 gets a big 'Liquid Glass' redesignApple's new iOS 26 makes live translation seamlessPreview all the updates coming to iPad this fall The Great Bird Search by Nicolette Polek Poets on Couches: Saskia Hamilton by Saskia Hamilton Dorothea Lange’s Angel of History by Rebecca Solnit Staff Picks: Slapstick, Stanzas, and Stuff by The Paris Review Poets on Couches: Timothy Donnelly by Timothy Donnelly Still Life by Lynn Casteel Harper Whiting Awards 2020: Jia Tolentino, Nonfiction Laughter as a Shield: An Interview with Souvankham Thammavongsa by Cornelia Channing All Love, All Beauty by Kay Ryan None of Us Are Normal by Julia Berick Classic Fiction with Binary Numbers by Tom Gauld Poets on Couches: Natalie Shapero by Natalie Shapero The Scientific Erotica Book Club by Tom Gauld Poets on Couches: Lynn Melnick by Lynn Melnick Why Certain Illnesses Remain Mysterious by Sarah Ramey Staff Picks: Cositas, Cosmos, and Concerts How to Draw the Coronavirus by Rebekah Frumkin The Winners of 92Y’s 2020 Discovery Poetry Contest by The Paris Review What’s Inside That Giant Cross? by Steven E. Jones Poets on Couches: Mary Szybist Reads Amy Woolard by Mary Szybist
1.7341s , 10132.46875 kb
Copyright © 2025 Powered by 【Erika bella porn movie Le bambole del Fuhrer (1995)】,Fresh Information Network