New Calculations Uncover a Vast Ocean Beneath Pluto’s Ice

Graduate student Alex Nguyen calculated the depth and density of the solar system’s most mysterious and remote body of water.

New calculations by Alex Nguyen, a graduate student in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, are bringing into focus the existence of a vast ocean of liquid water beneath Pluto’s icy surface.

In a paper published in the journal Icarus, Nguyen used mathematical models and images from the New Horizons spacecraft that passed by Pluto in 2015 to take a closer look at the ocean that likely covers the planet beneath a thick shell of nitrogen, methane, and water ice.

Patrick McGovern of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, was a co-author of the paper.