NASA, presented data gathered from New Horizons' flyby that suggests presence of ice volcanoes on Pluto on Monday. Images from the craft's flyby of Pluto earlier this year show a pair of circular mountains near the south pole that have deep depressions in their center, according to CNET.
The structure is similar to craters seen on Earth but instead of lava, the dwarf planet's volcanoes would likely spew an icy mixture of water, nitrogen, ammonia or methane.
The suggestion was raised at the 47th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences, where the mission team is presenting over 50 research reports from the flyby, BBC News reports.
"If they are volcanic, then the summit depression would likely have formed via collapse as material is erupted from underneath," said Oliver White, New Horizons postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center, according to Fox News.
New Horizons was also able to discover that the surface of Pluto has varying ages. Some areas are ancient, others intermediate, while some are relatively young.
"Crater counts of surface areas on Pluto indicate that it has surface regions dating to just after the formation of the planets of our solar system, about four billion years ago," according to NASA.
