Over the past six weeks, mankind has learnt more about Pluto than in the previous 85 years. The dwarf planet has snowfalls, mountains of ice rearing two miles high, and a youthful crust that belies its creaky old age. Could it also harbour life?
Brian Cox believes it might. The tell-tale ooze of glaciers on Pluto’s surface hints at the possibility of an subterranean sea warm enough to host organic chemistry, the physicist and broadcaster told The Times.
“[The New Horizons probe] showed you that there may well be a subsurface ocean on Pluto, which means — if our understanding of life on Earth is even slightly correct — that you could have living things there,” he said.
Astronomers are awaiting the next droplets