Sputnik Planitia, an enormous depression on Pluto, has puzzled scientists since its discovery in 2015. Now, researchers propose that a shallow-angle impact by an object the size of Switzerland created this peculiar feature. Their simulations show that the impactor’s buried core may have contributed to Sputnik Planitia’s unusual mass and equatorial location.
Computer simulations suggest that a rocky object about 730 kilometers wide could have crashed into Pluto billions of years ago, causing massive impact and potentially leaving behind a buried rocky remnant beneath its heart-shaped feature, Sputnik Planitia. This could explain the unusual equatorial location of the feature and provide an alternative explanation to the theory of a subsurface ocean.
