Could There Be Life On Pluto? Scientists Are Now Thinking It Is Possible

Nowadays, scientists and researchers are probing that life is possible on Pluto. Since the planet is facing a lot of crises, people keep on looking for an alternative to live in.

Researchers and scientists are investing in the study of life possibilities on different planets. Several articles mentioned that life is possible on Mars, but it will take a lot of arguments, though it is one of Earth's closest neighbors. Exploration and evidence are limited since people have limited spacecraft and time. Before someone would be able to make a space discovery, decades and centuries have already been consumed.

According to St. Louis Public Radio, data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft mentioned a possible thing that an ocean filled with ammonia could be remaining beneath Pluto's icy shell. Well, there is no direct evidence of an ocean in Pluto but scientists are making a hypothesis about it.

Researchers carefully studied that an ocean at extremely low temperatures could be existing if it contains ammonia, News.Mic reported. Ammonia has also been discovered by the New Horizons probe on two of Pluto's moons. Bill McKinnon, a Washington University professor and co-principal investigator of the New Horizons Mission, said that "because of this, it expands our idea of what oceans can be."

The said ocean is suspected to be located within the left section of Pluto's large heart-shaped feature, Sputnik Planitia, a basin covered with nitrogen ice,. McKinnon said that this part of Sputnik Planitia is aligned perfectly with Pluto's tidal axis, meaning that it is located at a point where the gravitational pull from the planet's largest moon Charon is the strongest. Pluto and Charon are tidally locked.

McKinnon remarked that Sputnik Planitia, which was likely formed by an ancient impact, is a truly unique feature in the solar system. "All of Pluto's geology and climate evolution is controlled by this one feature," McKinnon said. "You can find big impacts [in the solar system]. And you can find where ice is condensed. But there's nothing quite like this."

The next stop for the New Horizons spacecraft is a Kuiper Belt object called 2014 MU69. It is expected to reach by early 2019.

This study will take a lot of time before scientists can lay down the possibilities of life in Pluto. The said ocean is just a partial discovery and there are a whole lot of unknown things that needs to be discovered. Earth is truly a unique planet where life suits and possible for inhabitation. So while people are here, they had to make it happen for the coming generations to experience living on a planet where life is proven possible.