Bless Pluto’s heart.
When NASA‘s New Horizons spacecraft first snapped photos of an unusual heart-shaped scar on Pluto in 2015, the new view bolstered theories that the frigid world harbored an underground ocean.
Scientists thought the left side of the bright white heart, or Tombaugh Regio, formed after another planetary body crashed into it. The space collision may have allowed a deep reservoir of water to rise up into the chasm, intermixing with nitrogen gas from Pluto’s atmosphere, where it condensed and froze there.
But new research on the heart suggests there might not be an ocean lurking within Pluto after all. If so, this discovery would arguably add to Pluto’s list of 21st century embarrassments. Its demotion in 2006 from 9th planet in the solar system to dwarf planet lives in infamy, though Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs apparently just signed a law making Pluto the official state planet — facts and consensus, be darned.
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