Shedding light on mysterious formations resembling giant knife blades of ice on Pluto, scientists have found that the \u201cbladed terrain\u201d is made almost entirely of methane ice, and likely formed as a specific kind of erosion wore away the surfaces, leaving dramatic crests and sharp divides.Among the many surprises that NASA\u2019s New Horizons mission discovered when it flew past that distant world in July 2015, the strange \u201cbladed terrain\u201d had remained a mystery.<\/p>\n
These jagged geological ridges are found at the highest altitudes on Pluto\u2019s surface, near its equator, and can soar many hundreds of feet into the sky.<\/p>\n
The blades are related to Pluto\u2019s complex climate and geological history, according to the study published in the journal Icarus.<\/p>\n
A team led by New Horizons team member Jeffrey Moore, a research scientist at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center in California\u2019s Silicon Valley, determined that formation of the bladed terrain begins with methane freezing out of the atmosphere at extreme altitudes on Pluto, in the same way frost freezes on the ground on Earth, or even in your freezer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we realised that bladed terrain consists of tall deposits of methane ice, we asked ourselves why it forms all of these ridges, as opposed to just being big blobs of ice on the ground,\u201d said Moore.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt turns out that Pluto undergoes climate variation and sometimes, when Pluto is a little warmer, the methane ice begins to basically \u2018evaporate\u2019 away,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
Scientists use the term \u201csublimation\u201d for this process where ice transforms directly into gas, skipping over the intermediate liquid form.<\/p>\n
Similar structures can be found in high-altitude snowfields along Earth\u2019s equator, though on a very different scale than the blades on Pluto.<\/p>\n
This erosion of Pluto\u2019s bladed terrain indicates that its climate has undergone changes over long periods of time – on a scale of millions of years – that cause this ongoing geological activity.<\/p>\n
Early climatic conditions allowed methane to freeze out onto high elevation surfaces, but, as time progressed, these conditions changed, causing the ice to \u201cburn off\u201d into a gas.<\/p>\n
The findings suggest that the surface and air of Pluto are apparently far more dynamic than previously thought.<\/p>\n
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