Pluto's 'Heart' is Far Younger Than Anyone Expected: Born Yesterday

It turns out that Pluto's "heart" may be far younger than anyone expected. NASA researchers have taken a closer look at the data from the historic New Horizons flyby and have found that the heart-shaped region of Pluto is surprisingly young.

In order to determine the age of a surface area of the planet, scientists count crater impacts. The more crater impacts there are, the older the region likely is. Crater counts of surface areas on Pluto indicate that it has surface regions dating to just after the formation of the planets of our solar system, about four billion years ago.

However, a region of Pluto's heart was born yesterday-relatively speaking. Informally named Sputnik Planum, this area was probably formed within the past 10 million years. Surprisingly, Sputnik Planum is completely crater free in all images so far.

New data also shows that there are intermediate, or "middle-aged" terrains on Pluto. This suggests that Sputnik Planum is not an anomaly. Instead, it's likely that Pluto has been geologically active throughout much of its more than 4-billion-year history.

"We've mapped more than a thousand craters on Pluto, which vary greatly in size and appearance," said Kelsi Singer, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Among other things, I expect cratering studies like these to give us important new insights into how this part of the solar system formed."

The new data reveals a bit more about Pluto. Excitingly, it shows that this planet was relatively active after it was formed, and far into its history. Currently, researchers are looking at whether or not this planet is still active today.

For more information on the New Horizons mission, visit NASA's website.

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