--- title: Pluto: There Might Be an Ocean Under Dwarf Planet's Surface description: New studies published by journal Nature find that scarring on the surface of Pluto might have caused an ocean to form beneath the surface canonical: https://time.com/4573710/ocean-pluto-surface-heart-scarring/ author: Kerry Close article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-16T20:40:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T01:51:44.183Z article:section: Science og:title: There Might Be an Ocean Under Pluto's Surface og:description: Its heart-shaped crater might be concealing liquid water og:url: https://time.com/4573710/ocean-pluto-surface-heart-scarring/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3205281546b14c71/6988aec90b72e31ad16ebc9a/gettyimages-590674769.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Pluto's South Pole. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: There Might Be an Ocean Under Pluto's Surface twitter:description: Its heart-shaped crater might be concealing liquid water twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3205281546b14c71/6988aec90b72e31ad16ebc9a/gettyimages-590674769.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # There Might Be an Ocean Under Pluto's Surface by [Kerry Close](https://time.com/author/kerry-close/) ## Kerry Close Nov 16, 2016 8:40 PM UTC  A new report finds there might be an ocean under Pluto's surface. A new report finds there might be an ocean under Pluto's surface.Universal History Archive—UIG via Getty Images by [Kerry Close](https://time.com/author/kerry-close/) ## Kerry Close Nov 16, 2016 8:40 PM UTC [Pluto](http://time.com/4271345/nasa-photo-frozen-pond-pluto/)‘s heart might be hiding an ocean. Two studies published Wednesday by the journal _Nature_ show that the dwarf planet’s surface [might have been scarred](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature20120.html) when a smaller body slammed into it long ago. The subsequent crater—which formed in the shape of a heart—filled with nitrogen ice and [potentially liquid water](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature20148.html) and then developed a thick, icy rind on top. That more massive region would then be tugged on unevenly by the nearby moon [Charon](http://time.com/4058675/nasa-pluto-charon/), causing [Pluto](http://time.com/4264106/pluto-five-things/) to roll over, as much as 60 degrees, to its current arrangement. The liquid churning and gravitational perturbation beneath the surface that would result from all this would also explain the cracks on the dwarf planet’s crust. “Imagine you have an egg, and you want to move that bulge to another part of the egg,” one of the researchers, James T. Keane, [told the New York _Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/science/pluto-heart.html). “You have to squish it, and that’s going to cause it to break.” Further supporting the new thinking is the fact that Pluto and Charon are locked in an orbit in which the same side of both worlds always faces the other world. The 2015 flyby by the New Horizons spacecraft showed that the left lobe of Pluto’s celebrated heart formation is almost exactly on the opposite side of Pluto’s Charon-facing hemisphere, which is how the gravitational physics would play out if the area under the heart contained extra weight—in this case an ocean. Unfortunately, it will be impossible to test the theory until planetary scientists are able to measure Pluto’s gravity—something that can only be done by putting an object in orbit around Pluto. 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