The NASA-launched New Horizons Pluto Probe spacecraft passed past Pluto almost eight years ago. However, it continues to produce new scientific findings. New Horizons flew by Pluto during its approach, bringing the dwarf planet’s icy surface within 7,800 miles (12,500 km) of Earth. The New Horizons team presented its most recent findings at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). LPSC was held on March 14, 2023, both physically and virtually. The first of the three new findings explained Pluto’s flip’s beginning. Pluto had turned on its side in the past, just like Earth. However, scientists were unsure of how much it has changed its orientation.
The development of Sputnik Planitia comprises a 620-mile-wide basin filled with nitrogen ice that comprises half of the famous heart-shaped region on Pluto. It has instead been credited by a team of researchers as the cause of the flip. Researchers discovered parallel mountain ranges as well as deep valleys. They constitute what they think is a worldwide tectonic system by following the course of Pluto’s flip using photos from the flyby of New Horizons. Yet, none of the terrains that are currently visible to scientists are in their original positions. This is because Pluto has previously changed its orientation. Instead, these features probably started along Pluto’s equator. Later, they moved to their present places closer to the poles as a result of the flip.
The second finding made public during the meeting is that Pluto’s far side is covered in enormous amounts of methane ice that resemble knives. These methane deposits were first discovered by New Horizons close to Pluto’s equator. Several of these are as tall as Earth’s skyscrapers,
The most recent investigation examined the effects of viewing angles on the light reflected from surfaces. It was done using photos captured by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) onboard New Horizons. Because the surfaces were “rougher than typical roughness of Pluto,” they discovered similar methane absorption characteristics there. Methane freezes out of Pluto’s thin atmosphere at such altitudes during cold spells and evaporates back into gas form during warm times.
The third and concluding find showed that the components of the snowman-like Arrokoth item were assembled gradually over time. The farthest object ever explored by a spacecraft, Arrokoth. This is a tiny object in the Kuiper Belt, which was passed by New Horizons on January 1, 2019. The most recent research demonstrates that Wenu, is the larger of the two lobes that make up Arrokoth. Later, it evolved from rocks that already existed in the solar system’s outermost regions.
Due to its distance from the sun, which puts it in a “deep freeze,” the larger lobe is the most primitive item that has been studied. It consists of a cluster of 12 boulders crowded around a larger slab. The discovery made by the New Horizons team is unexpected. It adds another piece to the puzzle of how planetesimals, or tiny space objects, like Arrokoth and other objects in the Kuiper Belt, came to be.