Geophysics confirmed their point of view.
Data collected by American geophysicist, indicate the existence of the Pluto subsurface ocean. Devoted to the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
If a subsurface ocean on the dwarf planet froze a few million or billion years ago, Pluto to date, have undergone strong compression and deformation. This would be noticeable to scientists that explore the heavenly body with the help of New Horizons. To date, traces the global compression of the dwarf planet is not detected and, therefore, subsurface ocean of liquid water on Pluto may exist until now.
Geophysics confirmed their point of view, conducting computer modeling of thermal evolution of the dwarf planet. This procedure took into account the last received station of the New Horizons data on a celestial body (size and density). It turned out that if the subsurface ocean of the celestial body froze, he was not formed of hexagonal water ice (the most common on Earth), and trigonal.
Second, unlike the first one, is smaller, and its formation from the liquid state is not expanding (as hexagonal), and is reduced in volume. Such changes would lead to the formation of the Pluto global faults and irregularities of the terrain shape, which scientists have not noticed.
The formation of hexagonal water ice is possible if the thickness of the ice cover over the ocean more than 260 kilometers. The updated model of thermal evolution assumes that on Pluto, this figure exceeds 300 kilometers. Ice crust formed by methane and nitrogen, hiding underwater and ensures the existence of liquid water in it.
Station New Horizons July 14, 2015, at about 14 kilometers per second close to Pluto on the minimum distance of 12.5 thousand kilometers. At this time the peak of research.
The mission should complete its work in mid-2020. the Main objective of the New Horizons program is to study the dwarf planet Pluto and its satellite Charon. Scientific equipment installed at the plant, we collected data on the atmospheric composition and structure of Pluto’s surface and its interaction with Charon.
