Is There Life On Pluto?

Pluto has a liquid ocean under its icy crust that could harbour alien life, scientists have said.

19:10 24 June 2016

A new study published in Geophysical Research Letters said that Pluto could be harbouring alien life. Scientists have made the claim based on detailed photographs of the planet captured by New Horizons interplanetary space probe.

 

The study's lead author, Noah Hammond, a graduate student at Brown University, said: "Thanks to the incredible data returned by New Horizons, we were able to observe tectonic features on Pluto's surface, update our thermal evolution model with new data and infer that Pluto most likely has a subsurface ocean today.”

 

The authors said that the theory that Pluto’s oceans completely froze over millions of years ago could be wrong otherwise, it would have caused the entire planet to shrink. Also, photographs of the planet suggest that it has been expanding for more than anyone has expected.

 

"One mechanism that could drive extensional tectonic activity is global surface expansion due to the partial freezing of an ocean," explained the paper.

 

"Since there is no evidence for recent compressional tectonic features, we argue that ice II has not formed and that Pluto’s ocean has likely survived to present day."