New Horizons data reveals first confirmed landslides on dwarf planet
Terrestrial planets experience landslides in spades, as do some moons, asteroids and comets. But until now, they have never been definitively spotted on Pluto, even though the icy world has all the ingredients necessary for their formation. Images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft reveal six major landslides on the dwarf planetreport the researchers on June 13 in Icarus.
Combine a mountainous, rocky landscape with a bit of gravity and landslides are likely to occur. These mass movements can sculpt an environment, bringing solid materials and nutrients to new places, says Maria Teresa Brunetti, a physicist who studies landslides at the National Research Council in Perugia, Italy. “Landslides play an important role in shaping the relief. »
Rocky bodies from Earth to Phobos (a moon of Mars) to the asteroid Vesta all show evidence of landslides. But Pluto is lagging behind in the landslide game. Even after the New Horizons spacecraft zoomed by Pluto and its moons in 2015 and captured high-resolution images, researchers had not identified any. (Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, shows evidence of this.)
A reanalysis of New Horizons data changes that. The researchers, including Brunetti, looked for characteristic signs of landslides, such as steep cliffs and parts of the landscape that differed in tone and texture from their surroundings. Six features fit the profile, all near a broad, flat plain known as Sputnik Planitia.
