Pluto has a heart of ice where nitrogen winds rule the cold-hearted dwarf planet
India TodayPluto's famous "beating heart" of frozen nitrogen controls its winds and may give rise to features on its surface, new research has found. Nitrogen gas -- an element also found in air on Earth -- comprises most of Pluto's thin atmosphere, along with small amounts of carbon monoxide and the greenhouse gas methane. This highest-resolution image from Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft reveals new details of Pluto’s rugged, icy cratered plains | Photo credits: Nasa/JHUAPL/SwRI PLUTO'S RETRO-ROTATION The new research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, suggests this cycle pushes Pluto's atmosphere to circulate in the opposite direction of its spin - a unique phenomenon called retro-rotation. Its left "lobe" is a 1,000-kilometre ice sheet located in a three-kilometre-deep basin named Sputnik Planitia - an area that holds most of Pluto's nitrogen ice because of its low elevation.
History of this topic
'So pretty': NASA unveils heart-shaped glacier on Pluto's surface, see pic
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Pluto's atmosphere is disappearing. New research explains why
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Pluto's Mountains Are Snow-Capped, But The Serene White is Not Made Of Ice
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Ocean beneath Pluto's icy surface protected from freezing by a thin layer of gas
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