Frigid Pluto may have had a toasty start
Scientists propose that, rather than being chilly from the start, Pluto enjoyed a relatively balmy period early on in its history. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker/)Today, the dwarf planet Pluto is a frigid world with surface temperatures below -370 degrees Fahrenheit. But Pluto was a very different place when it formed several billion years ago. In a study published on June 22 in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists propose that, rather than being chilly from the start, Pluto enjoyed a relatively balmy period. This would mean that Pluto’s liquid ocean, which is locked under an icy shell tens to hundreds of miles thick, appeared early on in its development.The new findings have far-reaching implications, says Steven Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University in Tempe who was not involved with the research. “Until [around] 20 years ago, everyone’s perception of the Kuiper belt was that it...