Researchers have identified six massive landslides on Pluto by re-analyzing high-resolution imagery from NASA’s 2015 New Horizons flyby. The slides, located along the inner rims of three impact craters, suggest that Pluto’s surface is more geologically active than previously thought, with material moving across the landscape with surprising efficiency.
Evidence of Mass Movement on the Dwarf Planet
For over a decade, scientists have scrutinized the data sent back by the New Horizons spacecraft to understand the geomorphology of the outer solar system. While landslides are a common feature on rocky bodies like Earth, Mars, and the asteroid Vesta, they remained elusive on Pluto despite the presence of steep crater walls and mountainous terrain that seemed primed for such activity. A new study published in the journal Icarus has finally confirmed their existence, identifying six distinct landslide features near the wide, flat plain known as Sputnik Planitia.
These features are located within the Coughlin crater, the Giclas crater, and one additional unnamed crater. According to Discovermagazine, the landslides range in surface area from approximately 12 to 50 square miles, with the largest being roughly twice the size of Manhattan.
The Mechanics of Low-Friction Slopes
One of the most striking findings is the unusual mobility of the displaced material. On Earth, landslides are typically driven by gravity and influenced by factors like rain or seismic activity. On Pluto, the researchers observed that these landslides traveled over significantly longer distances than features of comparable height found elsewhere in the solar system.
“The landslides we identified on Pluto travelled relatively long distances, suggesting that the displaced material moved very efficiently. Studying this behaviour may provide clues about the properties of Pluto’s surface and subsurface materials, including the possible influence of ice and volatile substances.”
Marco Emanuele Discenza, researcher at Geoservizi s.r.l., via Discover Magazine
As Inshorts reported, this behavior points to low friction, which may be linked to the planet’s extremely cold conditions and the presence of volatile nitrogen and methane ices. While the exact trigger for these events remains a mystery, the study authors suggest that tectonic activity, cryovolcanism, or meteoroid impacts could be responsible for destabilizing the slopes.
Geological Activity in the Kuiper Belt
The discovery of these landslides provides a new lens through which to view Pluto’s evolution. These mass-wasting events serve as a primary mechanism for sculpting the landscape, transporting material from high-elevation crater rims to the floors below. Maria Teresa Brunetti, a physicist with the National Research Council, noted that landslides play an important role in shaping landforms
on various bodies, and their confirmation on Pluto bridges a gap in our understanding of Kuiper Belt objects.
By analyzing the elevation profiles of these features, researchers found that the material dropped from heights ranging between 1,500 and 2,200 meters. The study concludes that these observations are direct evidence of gravitational slope processes contributing to the surface evolution of icy bodies. For planetary scientists, this marks a significant shift in how they model the surface of distant, frozen worlds.
Future Exploration and Unresolved Questions
Despite this breakthrough, the current dataset is limited to what the New Horizons mission could capture during its 2015 flyby. Researchers believe that many more landslides likely exist on Pluto’s surface that remain hidden in lower-resolution images or have yet to be identified through further analysis. The team emphasized that identifying these features is only the beginning of understanding the dwarf planet’s dynamic history.
Future missions—if and when they are launched—will be essential for obtaining higher-resolution imagery and more precise topographic maps.
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