The startling truth about Pluto's 'heart of life'

The landmass that scientists suspect hides a habitable subterranean ocean on Pluto has been brutally formed.

Pluto's "heart of life" is a vast icy plain , almost perfectly heart-shaped in images that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has captured since 2015.

A study just published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy shows that this strange heart was formed from nitrogen ice accumulated after a large, slow-motion collision.

Did a violent collision leave Pluto with a heart-shaped ice field? - (Graphic photo: BERN UNIVERSITY)

The work, led by researcher Martin Jutzi from the University of Bern in Switzerland, used a simulation method called fine-particle hydrodynamics to test different impact angles and the size of the impactor. into an area called Sputnik Planitia.

Sputnik Planitia is the western lobe of a heart-shaped icy field, about 2,000km ² wide , about 4km lower than the surrounding area.

Pluto with a prominent heart-shaped structure on one side - (Photo: NASA).

The authors found that this shape may have originated from an oblique collision , which in turn created the elongated tail shape of half a heart.

The object that hit Sputnik Planitia in the past was an icy rock with a diameter of up to 730km.

Because of Pluto's icy core, the collision did not melt and liquefy parts of the dwarf planet as would happen in collisions with other bodies with warmer climates.

That mysterious icy object may have been flattened and the remains may be hidden somewhere under a layer of fine nitrogen ice.

In addition, this simulation by the team from the University of Bern brings quite sad news to astrobiologists, saying that underneath Sputnik Planitia there is likely no underground ocean.

Previously, some groups of scientists thought that a giant mass of liquid water kept the heart near the equator instead of gradually moving toward the poles during the evolution of the celestial body.

This line of opinion suggests that the underground ocean makes this ice field heavier, helping it maintain its position near the equator. If it were just ice, this heart would be too light and easily "float".

The most prominent of which are works from Hokkaido University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokushima University, Osaka University, Kobe University (Japan) and University of California at Santa Cruz (USA).

This group believes that this underground ocean may also be in a liquid state because there exists an insulating layer of clathrate gas hydrate between the ice shell and the ocean. Therefore, they believe that it is possible for life to exist.

However, according to the University of Bern team, the primordial mantle plowed by Pluto's meteorite impact made the heart heavy enough to move towards the equator without necessarily having a subsurface ocean. .

To get the final answer, we need to wait for international space agencies to send more spacecraft to Pluto.