New Horizons to Pluto System gives unusual terrain where it features a large deposit of nitrogen ice with a pattern of a polygon which is thickest at their centers and dip at their edges. In the Journal nature, a paper regarding this is published. Atmospheric and planetary sciences and professor of physics and aerospace engineering is distinguished by Purdue graduate student Alex Trowbridge under the guidance of Jay Melosh.

“Evidence suggests this could be a roiling sea of volatile nitrogen ice. Imagine oatmeal boiling on the stove; it doesn’t produce one bubble for the entire pot as the heated oatmeal rises to the surface and the cooler oatmeal is pushed down into the depths, this happens in small sections across the pot, creating a quilted pattern on the surface similar to what we see on Pluto. Of course, on Pluto this is not a fast process; the overturn within each unit happens at a rate of maybe 2 centimeters per year,” Melosh said.

“Within this pool of nitrogen ice, there are mountains of water ice that have collected at the edges of the polygons. The way they have collected suggests they have moved or floated like icebergs with the convection current. If this is true, we can calculate how deep the pool would need to be for the icebergs to float freely without catching on the bottom,” he said.

“Many people expected Pluto to be a cold, dead world,” Melosh said. “What we’ve discovered through this mission is that cold worlds like Pluto have a different kind of activity that involves materials we think of as gases. This understanding offers a new perspective that cold worlds can be just as active and interesting as our own.”

William McKinnon led a team with deputy lead of new horizons geology, geographics, and imaging team. A paper published with the most viable explanation for polygons in the issue of nature.