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Where did the water come from on Pluto?
by ajays 11y ago
Where did the water come from on Pluto?
- Splendor 11y agoNot all of the ice is water ice. Some is methane ice, carbon monoxide ice, etc. That being said, I've definitely heard members of the New Horizons team speculating about water ice being responsible for some of the mountains they've seen and even the idea of Pluto having an internal ocean at some point.
- idlewords 11y agoThey mentioned that methane ice and CO ice are not strong enough to make mountains out of, but that water ice at those temperatures is.
- sliverstorm 11y agoSupposedly water ice is the most common ice in the universe though.
- gizmo686 11y agoTo expand on the internal ocean point: One of the big problems with Pluto is that we would not expect it to still be active. One of the hypothesis that has been proposed is that the heat from Pluto's formation is trapped in an internal ocean and is slowly being released as the ocean freezes. Of course, even if this isn't what is powering Pluto, the other mechanism might still make the core hot enough for liquid water.
- gregor7777 11y agoWater is plentiful in our solar system. Much of it is locked up as ice, but it appears there is lots of it in liquid form underneath the ice in several moons as well.
- olentangy 11y agoIt's just oxidized hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. Oxygen is the third most common.