Recently, scientists discovered that there may be an icy volcano the size of Yellowstone on the surface of the planet Pluto.

The recently discovered volcano Kiladze Caldera was initially thought to be a crater using images taken by NASA’s New Horizons mission. After reviewing the data new horizonsScientists now believe that the Kiladze caldera has erupted several times in its history, each time spewing out approximately “thousands of kilometers of cryo-lava” – or nearly enough to cover the city of Los Angeles. The largest explosions occur, researchers write in a study presented in the journal Icarus and published in the preprint database. arXiv.

Cryovolcanoes, also known as ice volcanoes, are volcanoes that erupt from ice, water, and various gases instead of molten rock. They have been found in various places in our solar system, including the dwarf planet Ceres, located in the main asteroid belt. They are even responsible for the famous Enceladus clouds seen by the Cassini spacecraft.

He also said, “There are at least two other cryovolcanic structures on Pluto.” news week lead author and NASA planetary scientist Dale Cruickshank. These other ice volcanoes are known as Mons Rait and Mons Piccard.

Researchers had plenty of evidence to suspect that Kiladze was something other than an ordinary impact crater. Not only did it look a bit odd for a crater, it was also surrounded by water ice, hidden under methane snow and dirt, Pluto’s natural smog equivalent, and nestled among faults and other tectonic features.

The key moment was when the team found evidence of ammonia mixed with water ice around Kiladze. Ammonia lowers the freezing point of water, possibly allowing water to flow as liquid cryo-lava. Interestingly, ammonia is also an important molecule in the chemistry that creates amino acids and ultimately life.

The fact that Kiladze is surrounded by water ice suggests that it is quite young or at least erupted relatively recently (at least on a geological scale). Over time, water ice becomes covered with other materials, so the exposed area must be younger. “We estimate the age of Kiladze and its surroundings (since the last eruption) to be only a few million years,” Cruickshank said. said.

The big unresolved question is: Where did the hydrated cryo-lava come from? Going back to a distant time when Pluto was still hot from the collisions that gave birth to it, Cruickshank explained that Pluto “once had an internal ocean on a global scale.” Residual heat in the dwarf planet’s core may have kept this ocean in a liquid state, combining with freezing chemicals like ammonia and occasionally erupting through cryovolcanoes like Kiladze. Additionally, the subsurface ocean may have frozen long ago, but small pockets of water persist as feeder structures, such as the Kiladze.

“This is a mystery that the next generation of planetary scientists must solve,” Cruikshank said in an email.