NASA shares picture of Pluto’s ‘heart-shaped’ glacier

It may have been years since Pluto’s designation in the solar system was reduced to a ‘dwarf planet’ from the full-fledged ninth planet of the solar system, but it is still close to people’s hearts. Earlier this week, NASA posted a photo of Pluto that showed a heart-shaped glacier on its surface.

While sharing this photo on their Instagram, NASA wrote, “Our New Horizons spacecraft captured this heart-shaped glacier. It lies on Pluto’s surface, which also features mountains, cliffs, valleys, craters, and plains, thought to be made of methane and nitrogen ice. ⁣Pluto lies in the Kuiper belt, a donut-shaped region of icy bodies remnants from the early days of our solar system, beyond the orbit of Neptune. The small icy world is on average around 3.7 billion miles (5.9 billion kilometers) away from the Sun, but its oval-shaped orbit can bring Pluto closer to than Neptune at its closest point, expanding the tenuous atmosphere as it gets closer to our Sun.⁣”

 

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This picture gathered over 11 lakh likes. In the comments, many people jokingly urged NASA and the astronomical community to reinstate Pluto as the ninth planet.

Echoing this view, an Instagram user wrote, “Scientists did Pluto dirty and it still show us some love ❤️”. Another person said, “Imagine the amount of pain stored in this massive heart of Pluto when disowned, that too by humans who themselves don’t understand their existence😂. Story of every humongous hearted existence💔”.