Water on Pluto? New research says dwarf likely has hidden ocean

The dwarf planet of Pluto has been keeping scientists interested with each new finding since the New Horizon deep space probe did a fly-by last year, and now new research is indicating the frozen world possibly has a liquid ocean beneath its ice-covered surface.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, new computer models of Pluto support the idea that there is a body of water between the world’s rocky core and its outer covering of ice, or so says a team of researchers from Brown University.

The research team used computer simulations to show that if indeed the once-liquid ocean on the planet had become solid ice, the weight of the outer shell of ice would have crushed the freezing ocean into a different type of ice, known as ice-II.

Ice-II contracts as it freezes, taking up less volume, the reverse of typical ice that expands when freezing.  And if that had happened, the dwarf planet would have shrunken, causing buckling in the outer shell of ice in distinctive ways, sort of like the skin on an over-ripe peach, according to one expert.

But on Pluto’s surface, the new Horizon Probe found deep cracks and fissures, leading the research team to believe something in the planet’s core is keeping the ocean from completely freezing.  The importance of this finding is that it could also be happening on many other worlds within our solar system, and any world with liquid water has the potential for life.

A New Horizons scientist based at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Frances Nimmo,  offered, “The fact that even cold, distant Pluto could have a subsurface ocean means that there are potential habitats even in apparently unpromising locations.”

Even Pluto’s moon, Charon, could possibly have a liquid water ocean beneath its frozen surface as well.

Nadine Barlow, an astronomer at Northern Arizona University, noted such distant oceans would not be like the oceans found here on Earth.  Barlow adds, “Compared to our seas, Pluto’s potential ocean would also likely be especially briny, rich in dissolved salts and ammonia that would help reduce its freezing point and keep it in a liquid state.”

The researchers published their findings in Geophysical Research Letters.