Pluto has proven itself to be a diverse, dynamic and fascinating world packed with strange phenomena that planetary scientists are having problems fully explaining. And now they've found an icy oddity that highlights one of the key processes that is believed to shape this dwarf planet's surprisingly young surface. In recent high-resolution images sent back to Earth from NASA's New Horizons mission, which buzzed Pluto on July 14, 2015, a rather obvious chunk of ice appears to have been ripped away from Pluto’s surface. The upper layers of methane ice are missing from a western plain called Piri Planitia, a feature that is enriched with water ice. Below Piri Planitia is a very old cratered terrain ...
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