• DOI:10.1038/s41561-020-0595-0
Corpus ID: 219976751

Evidence for a hot start and early ocean formation on Pluto

@article{Bierson2020EvidenceFA,
  title={Evidence for a hot start and early ocean formation on Pluto},
  author={C. Bierson and F. Nimmo and S. A. Stern},
  journal={Nature Geoscience},
  year={2020},
  volume={13},
  pages={468-472}
}

C. Bierson, F. Nimmo, S. A. Stern

Published 2020

Nature Geoscience

Pluto is thought to possess a present-day ocean beneath a thick ice shell. It has generally been assumed that Pluto accreted from cold material and then later developed its ocean due to warming from radioactive decay; in this ‘cold start’ scenario, the ice shell would have experienced early compression and more recent extension. Here we compare thermal model simulations with geological observations from the New Horizons mission to suggest that Pluto was instead relatively hot when it formed… CONTINUE READING

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