Floating Hills on Pluto’s Sputnik Planum
Sputnik Planum
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
The nitrogen ice glaciers on Pluto appear to carry an intriguing cargo: numerous, isolated hills that may be fragments of water ice from Pluto’s surrounding uplands.
These hills individually measure one to several miles or kilometers across, according to images and data from NASA’s New Horizons mission.
The hills, which are in the vast ice plain informally named Sputnik Planum within Pluto’s ‘heart,’ are likely miniature versions of the larger, jumbled mountains on Sputnik Planum’s western border. They are yet another example of Pluto’s fascinating and abundant geological activity.
Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI Larger image
