'Beautiful Eye Candy': Frozen Plains In Pluto's Heart
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CAPE CANAVERAL (CBSMiami/AP) — Pluto's heart is vast and frozen – in a good way.
Scientists said the planet's heart-shaped area houses its plains, which sits next door to big rugged mountains of water ice and span a couple hundred miles.
The New Horizons spacecraft team revealed close-up photos of those plains Friday, three days after the historic flyby. Scientists have unofficially named the plains after Sputnik, the world's first man-made satellite.
Like the mountains unveiled Wednesday, the plains look to be a relatively young 100 million years old. Scientists speculate internal heating — perhaps from icy volcanoes or geysers— might be responsible for these youthful-looking, crater-free regions. The plains appear to include smooth hills and fields of small pits.
Principal scientist Alan Stern says the pictures coming down from 3 billion miles away are "beautiful eye candy."
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