Astronomers peer closely at images of Pluto have make out what look like dune on the surface of the former planet . They would n’t be sand sand dune , but sand dune of methane ice — an Earthly feature on a totally alien world .
Dunes do n’t just happen — they require both tiny grains and some sort of force , like breaking wind , to push them into shape . When New Horizons passed by Pluto back in 2015 , it catch sand dune - looking features just beside a heap compass . It ’s a will not only to jut how interesting aloof cosmic objects can be , but how far human being have fall in our ability to observe rock in space .
“ The best imagery prior to New Horizons was 12 pixels across for the whole gnome major planet , ” study author Matt Telfer from Plymouth University in the United Kingdom told Gizmodo . “ What we have now is grounds of a various , active , and active geological Earth’s surface . We see mountains , glacier , and frappe moving . Even despite the slight atmosphere , we see evidence of that ambiance shaping the surface of that world just as it does on our own planet . ”
Pluto ’s dunes look truly Earthly . They ’re situated parallel to the edges of the side by side mountains and perpendicular to the commission of nearby wind streaks . But they ’re nothing like the wind - swept , sandy dunes of the Sahara . Pluto ’s air is far too fragile to pick up and push tiny grain of methane on its own .
or else , the particle could be convulse into the line when nitrogen ice sublimes — turns from a self-colored into a accelerator , create an upward cat valium of nitrogen gun . Once that happens , the satellite ’s feather - light snap could push the methane atom , each about the sizing of a human adipose tissue cell , into the ridge observed by Telfer and the New Horizons team .
Discovering the dunes was possible through the combination of an psychoanalysis of the famous map of Pluto ’s surface produced by New Horizons during its flyby , and the manipulation of another scientist ’s modeling . The researchers publishedtheir resultstoday in Science .
The structure might not be dunes , of course . “ We do n’t see sediment move and we do n’t see the dunes move , ” Alex Hayes , a Cornell University astronomer who was not involved with the bailiwick , told Gizmodo . “ But that ’s the point . The whole theme sees this interesting feature and endeavor to represent what they could be … The author make a convincing line , but without high - resolution images , it ’s tough to know for sure . ”
It ’s hard to envisage such a feature made any other means , though , say Telfer . And it would n’t be the first extra - terrestrial dune ever spotted , Hayes pointed out . Mars , Saturn ’s moon Titan , and even the comet67P / Churyumov - Gerasimenkoeach have ostensibly Earthly jazz - sweep features .
As to what this might mean for the “ is Pluto a planet ” debate , the result is nothing . Pluto is still classified as a dwarf planet , and whether or not we call it a satellite is irrelevant to Telfer and his team ’s work . After all , There are a host of other interesting and large world beyond Pluto . “ One thing we ’re all looking forward to see to it is New Horizon ’s flyby of a Kuiper Belt Object on January 1 , next twelvemonth , ” he aver . Who love what closed book wait us on that rock-and-roll , calledUltima Thuleor2014 MU69 .
As for Pluto and its dune , they show just how much more there is to search . “ It ’s telling us what distance geographic expedition tells us sentence and clock time again , ” said Hayes . “ The only affair you’re able to await is to be surprised . ”
[ scientific discipline ]
AstronomyAstrophysicsPlutoScienceSpace
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