A mountain range which is around 260 miles long appears to be topped with methane ice or snow.
 |
This NASA image was sent back by New HorizonsA stunning new NASA photo shows that Pluto may have mountains capped with methane snow.
Photographs taken by the New Horizons spacecraft have found mountains in the Cthulhu Regio - an area bigger than Alaska.
The mountain range is around 260 miles long, and the tops of the mountains appear to be covered with methane ice or snow.
The substance is likely to have condensed from Pluto's atmosphere.
New Horizons scientist John Stansberry said: "That this material coats only the upper slopes of the peaks suggests methane ice may act like water in Earth's atmosphere, condensing as frost at high altitude."
Scientists believe that Pluto's mountains are probably made from water-ice.
The super-low temperatures of Pluto mean that water-ice can become hard enough to grow into giant structures which are as tall as the Rockies.
New Horizons passed Pluto in July last year, and is still sending back the immense amounts of data it captured.
The data transfer will not be complete until around July this year.
It is now speeding towards another target - an object known as 2014 MU69 - and is due to arrive in 2019.
Source : sky.news
|