Liquid nitrogen evidence on Pluto

A new analysis of imagery from United States — NASA's New Horizons spacecraft's 2015 flyby of Pluto has found evidence that liquid nitrogen is rising to the surface through cracks in the northern edge of Sputnik Planitia, a vast frozen nitrogen glacier larger than Texas and Oklahoma combined. This is the first evidence of recently flowing liquid on Pluto. The research, published in the Planetary Science Journal, suggests that dark linear and diffuse features on the glacier may be occasionally wetted by liquid nitrogen emerging from beneath the glacier, a process resembling glacial features on Earth wetted by rain or subsurface liquids. Since Pluto's atmospheric and thermal conditions make liquid nitrogen rain impossible, the findings indicate the liquid is flowing upward from underneath. The study was led by Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, principal investigator of New Horizons.