ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Scientists have found the first evidence that liquid may have flowed across Pluto’s surface in the recent past, which is a remarkable finding for a world that is, on the record, the least recent thing in the solar system. The team at Southwest Research Institute, which led the analysis, is, on this record, quietly delighted. The finding, per ScienceDaily, comes from a new look at imagery collected during NASA’s New Horizons flyby in 2015 — the same encounter that found the heart.

The heart, which is the enormous glacier Sputnik Planitia, has, it now appears, been doing something at its northern edge for a good deal longer than anyone had assumed. Dark features on the surface are consistent with liquid nitrogen rising through cracks from deep beneath the ice — a process the team calls cryovolcanism, which is the geological word for a planet that is, in the specific, still doing.

"The shape is cooperating. The shape has always been the thing we thought was done."

Computer models show that nitrogen could melt at the glacier’s base and travel upward like a fluid, which is, on this record, the finding. The temperature at the surface of Pluto is, for those following at home, cold enough that most of the solar system would call it a number and leave. The finding is that the number is not the whole story, and that under the number there is a movement, and the movement is the liquid.

The distance is four billion kilometers, and the spacecraft handled it, per the team, “well.” The next question the team has, which it has said out loud, is whether the process is unique to Pluto, and its answer, which it has also said out loud, is that it may also be the case at Triton and Eris, two other cold worlds, which is, on this record, the way the solar system does its quiet work — at the coldest places, on the longest timescales, with the least fanfare.

THE PLUTO CONDITION: STATUS REPORT

  • The heart: confirmed to be the glacier, and, as of this week, the thing that is moving.
  • The liquid: nitrogen, and, per the models, a thing that melts at the base.
  • The distance: four billion kilometers, and, per the team, a number the spacecraft handled "well."
  • The neighbors: Triton and Eris, and, per the team, a place where this could also be the case.

The finding was reported at a conference this week, and the team, when asked how it felt to find movement on the solar system’s coldest rock, said, and we quote, “it is the thing we would have wanted to find,” which is, on this record, the way the people who look at the cold places put it when the cold place turns out to be, in the specific, still doing.

At press time, the team said the analysis is the analysis, the heart is the heart, and the next flyby is, per the calendar, a thing it is talking about. When asked if it expected the liquid to still be there, the team said, “it is cold,” said it again, slower, and then it went back to the data. The team concluded that cryovolcanism is plausible and may occur on other cold worlds like Triton and Eris, per FYFD.