Does Icy Pluto Have a Hidden Ocean? New Horizons Offers New Clues | Science | Smithsonian
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/...-have-hidden-ocean-new-horizons-offers-new-clues-180957737/?&no-ist
In addition to wonders like soaring mountains, ice volcanoes and a giant heart-shaped basin, images beamed back by the probe revealed a surface marred by a network of fissures and a notably spherical shape.
For some scientists, those last two discoveries are hints that something even wilder may be hidden inside the tiny world, because they are the first direct clues that Pluto could host a subsurface ocean beneath its thick, icy crust. If confirmed, an ocean on Pluto would have profound implications, because it would increase the likelihood that other icy bodies could host liquid water—and possibly life.
"The fact that even cold, distant Pluto could have a subsurface ocean means that there are potential habitats even in apparently unpromising locations," says Francis Nimmo, a New Horizons scientist based at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
These cracks hint at subsurface seas:
