Recently, Pluto succeeded to be relevant once again, catching researchers’ attention with quite the performance. A mysterious object seemed to be moving and discharging a path across the dwarf planet’s surface, explained NASA.
The New Horizons probe, which started its mission back in 2006, shot an image of the unexpected event. The picture resembles a snail and its trace, which is exceptionally odd, according to Marc D’Antonio, an astronomer and image analyst, which dubbed the occurrence as a “space snail.”
As astronomer D’Antonia expressed his excitement, other researchers already began an investigation. Seth Shostak, for example, and astronomer, detailed: “The surface of Pluto is a horrible place for life, an impossible place. […] everything in your body would freeze in a few seconds.” But he believes in a reasonable explanation, explaining how significant an examination is.
Astronomers observed a moving object on the dwarf planet Pluto
Pluto, even if it was downgraded to a dwarf planet, is exceptionally geologically active under the surface. It has one area, dubbed Sputnik Planitia, which is full of traces thought to have been formed by some convection cells in the comparatively soft nitrogen ice. Some believe that those “scars” are a dead world, but they’re nothing like that at all.
Researchers from NASA think that nitrogen is dragged to the ground over thousands of years, but since the water is less dense than the iced nitrogen, massive icebergs appeared floating on the nitrogen. Imagine a lava lamp and the way a blob could slowly reach the top from the bottom. In this case, such a thing is similar.
So, those traces are the edges of convection areas where heated material has reached the top, then the cold content froze, falling on the sides. As for the massive “space snails,” they’re most likely the water ice, which will turn to be rock hard, creating an immense iceberg, then finding its place on the top of the nitrogen ice.