/sci/ - Science & Math

Pluto colony when - edition

previous >>15769866

>>15772664
you are saying that the rocky parts are inaccessible?

>>15340766
thats pretty cool, I didn't know pluto had liquid water
but why you ask? I guess water just isn't that rare, hydrogen is the most abundandt element and oxygen is actually the third most abundant apparently in the whole of milky way according to spectroscopic estimates

>Pluto's density is 1.860±0.013 g/cm3.[7] Because the decay of radioactive elements would eventually heat the ices enough for the rock to separate from them, scientists expect that Pluto's internal structure is differentiated, with the rocky material having settled into a dense core surrounded by a mantle of water ice. The pre–New Horizons estimate for the diameter of the core is 1700 km, 70% of Pluto's diameter.[117] Pluto has no magnetic field.[118]

>It is possible that such heating continues today, creating a subsurface ocean of liquid water 100 to 180 km thick at the core–mantle boundary.[117][119][120] In September 2016, scientists at Brown University simulated the impact thought to have formed Sputnik Planitia, and showed that it might have been the result of liquid water upwelling from below after the collision, implying the existence of a subsurface ocean at least 100 km deep.[121] In June 2020, astronomers reported evidence that Pluto may have had a subsurface ocean, and consequently may have been habitable, when it was first formed.[122][123] In March 2022, they concluded that peaks on Pluto are actually a merger of "ice volcanoes", suggesting a source of heat on the body at levels previously thought not possible.[124]