NASA scientists have found huge ice volcanoes on Pluto!
The discovery was made through on images sent back to earth by Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft mission.
Experts think they’ve discovered around 10 or more ice volcanoes that are between 1km and 7km tall!
Scientists at the Southwest Research Institute in America looked at pictures taken in 2015 by the New Horizons spacecraft.
However, these volcanoes are slightly different. Unlike volcanoes on Earth which erupt lava and gases, ice volcanoes expel large amounts of ice that experts think may have the texture of toothpaste!
They have previously been found in several other places in our Solar System, including on Saturn’s largest moon Titan and on the dwarf planet Ceres which is found between Mars and Jupiter.
New Horizons is a Nasa mission to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its moons, and other objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region of space in the outer solar system.
Did you know?
Temperatures on Pluto are extremely cold – they range from -172 to -238 degrees Celsius depending on where it is in its orbit.
Pluto is so far away from Earth, that it took Nasa’s New Horizon spacecraft 9.5 years to make the 3 billion mile journey!
One Response
Wow that’s a long time.😲