Salutations to the heart of Pluto.

when NASAThe New Horizons spacecraft captured the first images of an unusual heart-shaped spot. Pluto In 2015, new theory bolstered theories that a cooler world harbored a subsurface ocean.

Scientists believed that the left side of the bright white heart, or tombau regio, formed after another planetary body collided. gave the location The collision would have allowed deep reservoirs of water to mix with nitrogen gas from Pluto's atmosphere and rise into the crater, where it condensed and froze.

But new research into the heart suggests that there is no ocean hidden inside Pluto. If so, the discovery would add to Pluto's list of 21st-century embarrassments. Its demotion from the 9th planet of the solar system to a dwarf planet in 2006 remains infamous, although Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs apparently signed a law making Pluto. The official planet – Facts and coincidences, damn it.

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Astronomers used advanced computer simulations to try to recreate the catastrophic event. The team was able to show that a powerful yet slow strike from another planetary body could have damaged the heart if it had been a reflected blow rather than a head-on blow. These results were revealed under the leadership of the University of Bern in Switzerland. were published. In this month Nature Astronomy.

Through computer models, the team found that collisions in Pluto's early history, before it was fully formed, could have caused the left side of the heart, a feature known as Sputnik Planitia. According to the study, this area is about a quarter of the size of Europe. The impact would have been as wide as Tennessee.

The researchers attributed the heart's shiny appearance to white nitrogen ice that moves heat like a convection oven and flattens the surface. The team believes that nitrogen must have accumulated in the crater soon after the crash due to the low altitude.

Researchers attribute the heart's shiny appearance to white nitrogen ice that moves heat like a convection oven and continuously smooths the surface.
Credit: NASA/APL/SwRIV

The other side of the heart is covered. A similar layer of nitrogen iceDespite being very thin. Although its origin is not well understood, scientists believe it is also related to the Sputnik planetia.

“Pluto's core is cold enough that the rocks remain very hard and do not melt despite the heat from the impact,” said Harry Ballantyne, lead author. In a statement“And thanks to the angle of impact and the low speed, the core of the impactor did not sink into Pluto's core, but remained on it as a splinter.”

Co-author Eric Asfaug of the University of Arizona added that the core of the asteroid that hit Pluto likely lies beneath the Sputnik planetia in a “never fully digested” form.

The new study offers a different explanation for why the heart-shaped feature has not moved toward the near pole.
Credit: NASA/APL/SWRI

The new simulation sheds light on Pluto's inner workings. Physics should cause this depression to move slowly toward the nearest pole, but Sputnik sits near the equator of Planetia Pluto. Previous theories suggested that Pluto's icy shell would have thinned at the impact site, causing A liquid underground ocean moving and growing towards the equator.

But the new study offers a different explanation that isn't needed. An underground ocean. In the simulation, the impact erodes all of Pluto's ancient mantle. According to the paper, when the impactor's core spread over the center of Pluto, it produced a large amount of material at the site that allowed the depression to move equatorward.

Scientists have been wondering about the dwarf planet since New Horizons' close encounter with Pluto nine years ago. Scientifically valuable. Rather than a cold, featureless ball in the outer reaches of the solar system, the spacecraft's images showed a geologically diverse world, with mountains, ice sheets, craters, rocks, crevasses and valleys. But if it's not a sea world, there's a lot more to learn about its past.

“The formation of Sputnik Planetia provides an important window into the earliest periods of Pluto's history,” said co-author Adeni Denton of the University of Arizona. In a statement. “By expanding our investigation to include more unusual formation scenarios, we have learned some entirely new possibilities for Pluto's evolution, which may apply to other Kuiper Belt objects as well.”