According to a study promoted by NASA and published in the journal Icarus , analysis of the fractures that run through the surface of Charon, one of Pluto’s moons , could reveal that the interior of the satellite was found in the past hot enough to harbor an ocean of water in a liquid state.
Pluto and the objects that orbit it are 29 times farther from the Sun than Earth. On its surface, the temperature is around 229 ° C below zero, an environment too cold for water to flow through it .
However, a team of researchers coordinated by Alyssa Rhoden, from the Goddard Space Flight Center of the US agency, has found interesting similarities between the aforementioned fissures and those that appear in some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn , in which they have been found. evidence of the existence of bodies of groundwater.
Thus, in the case of Europa, one of the Jovian satellites, and that of Enceladus, which revolves around Saturn, the gravitational pull exerted by their respective planets and the other moons causes their orbits to present a certain eccentricity and to generate tidal forces that can heat its interior and stress its surface .
Now, these experts in planetary sciences have found that a similar phenomenon could have occurred in the past between Pluto and Charon , which has eight times less mass than the first.
After the formation of this satellite, possibly after the impact of a large object on Pluto, a great tidal force originated that considerably affected both bodies. Charon was able to experience internal friction and surface cracks . “The model we have developed predicts the patterns that Charon fractures follow based on the thickness of the surface, its structure, the deformation it has undergone and the evolution of its orbit,” says Rhoden.
The first spacecraft to approach this remote minisystem will be NASA’s New Horizons probe , which from July 2015 will provide us with detailed observations. “When we compare them with our model, we can confirm whether this satellite had an underground ocean in the past,” Rhoden emphasizes.
