Pluto Mysteries

Recent discoveries about Pluto have generated more questions than answers. Pluto is smaller than our moon and is about 3 billion miles away. The New Horizon probe recorded the most advanced images of Pluto every obtained.
Pluto has mountains higher than the Andes, huge mounds that have depressions resembling volcanoes, bright areas and very little in the way of craters, and a blue atmosphere of nitrogen.

Huge shield volcanoes (formed by long continuous lava flows) exist on Earth, but would not be expected on Pluto. Mars has such a volcano that's known as Olympus Mons. Pluto is too far away from the Sun for a volcano like that to exist. Pluto consists of a crust of frozen nitrogen over a mantle of frozen ice. So, Pluto's volcanoes are cold volcanoes, consisting of slushy ice being pushed up to the surface. However, the large heart-shaped area (Sputnik Planum) is a basin that appears to be boiling. This could indicate geological activity. The heart area could be fed  by glaciers because it show cracks that appear to be rivers of ice flowing from highlands. However, these glaciers are not made of ice but rather from frozen nitrogen. The middle part of the basin is composed of liquid nitrogen flowing up over a frozen nitrogen surface. This is occurring at 400 degrees Centigrade below zero.

Where is the heat coming from to cause this geological activity on Pluto? The theory is that Pluto has a deep massive subterranean ocean of liquid water. When water freezes it releases heat. This heat is what's driving the nitrogen geological activity. This sounds crazy but it's a known physical chemistry concept. Freezing water releases heat, the latent heat of fusion.

This sort of volcanism could be occurring on many rocky planets not only in our solar system but also in the solar systems of other stars in our galaxy and the universe. And, the kicker is that these planets could be harboring life. Other examples of this in our solar system are Enceledus and Europa, the moons of Saturn and Jupiter respectively. Another possibility is Titan, the large moon of Saturn, which also has a sizable atmosphere.

Pluto's nitrogen atmosphere contains organic molecules (created by reactions of simpler molecules) and these compounds are raining down onto the surface as pink and brown organic snow. Those organic areas seen on Pluto are evidence of this.

What's really odd about Pluto is its Northern hemisphere. This area contains ridges, depressions and gullies that suggest some liquid on the surface. But, Pluto is too far away from the Sun for that. So, what's going on here? Pluto has a very highly elliptical orbit around the Sun. Every million years Pluto gets much nearer to the Sun. However, the time it spends in its summer season is not long enough for anything to happen, at least not unless something else could explain how liquid could form on the surface. Pluto pole warbles radically so that it can turn on its side and point its North pole toward the Sun. Our Earth has a stable spin and our planet tilts the same of most of its history. When Pluto is near the Sun in its orbit and points its North pole at the Sun, it allows the nitrogen glaciers to melt and the nitrogen atmosphere to increase in pressure just enough to form nitrogen lakes on the surface. This will happen again in 900,000 years. I can't wait!

Thanks for reading.