Canyons on Pluto’s largest moon may have risen from a frozen ocean

for Cracks seen on the surface of Pluto’s largest moonCharon may have been created from a source. frozen underground ocean. This was a recommendation based on data from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). new horizons research to explain the origin of the grand canyons that separate the northern and southern hemispheres of the dwarf planet’s natural satellite.

The NASA probe flew over the system in 2015 on a mission to characterize the geology of the most distant stars in the Solar System. The sending of the first high-resolution images has sparked scientists’ interest in what might be the factor responsible for shaping the world. viewIt is marked by a band of fractures with a diameter of 1,214 kilometers.

In this context, SwRI suggested, through new models, that the source of this phenomenon is cryovolcanic activity (ice and water eruption). This is because freezing of the ocean causes it to expand as a result, pressurizing the water below, thereby creating rupture points in the surface layer.

Soon, the researchers concluded that these tensions were fundamental to the formation of the canyons during the geological evolution of Charon. In this way, the discovery eliminated the possibility of Pluto’s natural satellite being considered a simple ice ball floating in space, because it presents a much more active morphological dynamic than previously imagined.