Space
There Is An Ocean In Pluto People Do Not Want To Swim In
Leon Lamb
First Posted: Dec 03, 2016 02:53 AM EST
Just like Earth, Pluto also holds a vast ocean measuring up to 780 miles wide. Too bad, it contains anti-freeze chemicals dangerous for swimming just in case one is thinking about going for a dive.
Business Insider reported that NASA's New Horizon spacecraft has paved the way in discovering Pluto's liquid ocean sizing up to 75 percent of Earth's bodies of water combined. Although this could be pretty inviting for humans to literally "test the waters," it contains unsafe chemicals such as methane and ethane hydrocarbons, methanol and ethanol alcohols, and other compounds made up of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen, which are abundant in the dwarf planet.
These anti-freeze elements might make the icy planet's waters slushier than liquid, but they are capable of forming a chemical basis for life and consumable energy as well.
Aside from these, one of the study's lead author, Bill McKinnon, believes that this form of liquid also contains the chemical ammonia, which can be found in people's bleachers and kitchen cleaners.
"New Horizons has detected ammonia as a compound on Pluto's big moon, Charon, and on one of Pluto's small moons. So it's almost certainly inside Pluto," McKinnon said in a press release. "What I think is down there in the ocean is rather noxious, very cold, salty and very ammonia-rich - almost a syrup. "
Although the precise total amount of ammonia present in the dwarf planet is yet to be found out, an estimated 10 to 35 percent ammonia and 90 to 65 percent water mixture could potentially cause blisters, severe burns and permanent scarring on the skin, as well as diarrhea, vomiting, collapse or even death when swallowed.
So can alien life really exist in Pluto?
"If you're going to talk about life in an ocean that's completely covered with an ice shell, it seems most likely that the best you could hope for is some extremely primitive kind of organism," McKinnon explained. "It might even be pre-cellular, like we think the earliest life on Earth was."
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First Posted: Dec 03, 2016 02:53 AM EST
Just like Earth, Pluto also holds a vast ocean measuring up to 780 miles wide. Too bad, it contains anti-freeze chemicals dangerous for swimming just in case one is thinking about going for a dive.
Business Insider reported that NASA's New Horizon spacecraft has paved the way in discovering Pluto's liquid ocean sizing up to 75 percent of Earth's bodies of water combined. Although this could be pretty inviting for humans to literally "test the waters," it contains unsafe chemicals such as methane and ethane hydrocarbons, methanol and ethanol alcohols, and other compounds made up of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen, which are abundant in the dwarf planet.
These anti-freeze elements might make the icy planet's waters slushier than liquid, but they are capable of forming a chemical basis for life and consumable energy as well.
Aside from these, one of the study's lead author, Bill McKinnon, believes that this form of liquid also contains the chemical ammonia, which can be found in people's bleachers and kitchen cleaners.
"New Horizons has detected ammonia as a compound on Pluto's big moon, Charon, and on one of Pluto's small moons. So it's almost certainly inside Pluto," McKinnon said in a press release. "What I think is down there in the ocean is rather noxious, very cold, salty and very ammonia-rich - almost a syrup. "
Although the precise total amount of ammonia present in the dwarf planet is yet to be found out, an estimated 10 to 35 percent ammonia and 90 to 65 percent water mixture could potentially cause blisters, severe burns and permanent scarring on the skin, as well as diarrhea, vomiting, collapse or even death when swallowed.
So can alien life really exist in Pluto?
"If you're going to talk about life in an ocean that's completely covered with an ice shell, it seems most likely that the best you could hope for is some extremely primitive kind of organism," McKinnon explained. "It might even be pre-cellular, like we think the earliest life on Earth was."
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone