A recluse for a very long time, Pluto is starting to show its real appearance to the rest of the universe as indicated by its newly released high-resolution images. One of them captures a spider — on ice.
The New Horizons mission of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has provided us with more than just a more broadened knowledge about the demoted planet. Aside from the fact it's icy, its strange topography and unusual features tend to tickle our imagination.
Aside from the Pluto's heart and the snake, the planet also tends to have a spider, which is actually an unusual pattern that covers a varied topography such as the textured mountains in the south and the "mottled, rolling plains of the high northern latitudes," reported NASA.
These spiders on Pluto have legs that seem to converge in a central area. Spaced miles apart, they are aligned east and west, as well as north and south, although they vary in terms of specific length.
NASA has named, at least informally, the longest line as Sleipnir Fossa (fossa meaning depression), which is about 360 miles long. The shortest lines, which are no more than 60 miles, are found aligned east and west.
Fractures are not new in the planet, as other New Horizons photos show, but this spider has caught the interest of scientists because of the way it may have formed.
While some of the discovered lines may have developed as the water-ice crust of the planet expanded, those that make up the giant spider may be because of "focused source of stress in the crust under the point where the fractures converge - for example, due to material welling up from under the surface," NASA further added.
Last year, NASA hoped New Horizons could capture images of spider patterns in the planet during the flyby as the ice geyser season might cause nitrogen in gas and ice form to come out of the surface.
The fractures also reveal "red deposits," the composition of which isn't known yet.
Recently, New Horizons images also showed "remnants" of the frozen lake. Since they could not collect samples for testing, they conducted a simulation experiment and figured that they possess a unique crystalline structure composed of benzene and methane.
