When Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto in 2015, planetary geologists expected a few dull images of a cold, dark icy body on the edge of the Solar System. But Pluto surprised everyone.
What astronomers discovered was a complex dwarf planet with a surprisingly varied landscape potted with huge cliffs, deep ravines, enormous mountains all battered by a curious kind of weather with evidence of water plus much more.
There is even some evidence of volcanoes on Pluto. These are unlike those on Earth because Pluto is icy rather than rocky with the temperature at a chilly -233 degrees Centigrade. So water ice plays the role of molten rock here and makes Pluto’s eruptions the result of “cryovulcanism”.
