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Piccard Mons
Feature type	Mountain, cryovolcano
Location	Tombaugh Regio, Pluto
Coordinates	35°16′S 176°47′E / 35.26°S 176.79°E
Diameter	~257 km (160 mi)
Peak	6 ± 1 km (3.7 ± 0.62 mi)} (base to crest)
Discoverer	New Horizons
Eponym	Auguste Piccard

Piccard Mons is a large, roughly circular mountain and likely cryovolcano on the dwarf planet Pluto. Discovered by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, it is located southeast of Wright Mons within the Tombaugh Regio, adjacent to the Safronov Regio and Elcano Montes.^[3]

Discovery and naming

On 14 July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft conducted a flyby of the Pluto and its system of moons, resolving surface features on Pluto for the first time. Piccard Mons was soon after informally named by the New Horizons team after Swiss balloonist and physicist Auguste Piccard. On 30 May 2019, Piccard Mons was approved as the official name of the feature by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).^[4]^[5] Piccard Mons is believed to be the tallest cryovolcano on Pluto with an estimated height of 7 km (4.2 mi)^[6]

Challenges

By the time the New Horizons spacecraft was conducting its highest-resolution observations, the mountain was in darkness, having rotated past Pluto's terminator. Although some images were able to be taken past the line of darkness using sunlight reflected by Pluto's atmospheric haze layers, much less can be told about it than neighboring sunlit regions.^[7]^: 2

Geography

Piccard Mons is at one of the southernmost points on Pluto. It is located in the southeastern part of the Tombaugh Regio and is west of the Safronov Regio. It is to the southeast of the Wright Mons and Hyecho Palus.

Structure and geology

Piccard Mons is not made of rock like many other volcanoes in the Solar System, but a combination of ammonia, methane, carbon monoxide, ice, and nitrogen, all in solid form. Additionally, it is believed that Piccard Mons is made up of additional materials that are stronger than N₂ ice.^[8]

Near Piccard Mons and the surrounding area, there is a hummocky terrain which means that there are consistent hills in the area. Very little is known about these hilly areas, but they do not seem to have been formed by erosion or continuous melting and freezing.^[9]

Cryovolcanism

It is believed that Piccard Mons is an effusive cryovolcano rather than explosive.^[10] This means that there was a low-viscosity fluid known as cryomagma that flowed down the mountain.^[11]

Before the discovery of Piccard Mons, it was believed that Pluto didn't have enough residual heat to cause volcanic eruptions, but with the evidence of the volcano having recently erupted, it is believed that there may have been enough radioactive material in the core of Pluto to cause such an eruption.^[12]

References

^ "Piccard Mons". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program. (Center Latitude: -35.26°, Center Longitude: 176.79°; Planetocentric, +East)
^ "Piccard Mons Information". planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov.
^ "Map of Pluto". planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov.
^ "Piccard Mons Information". planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov.
^ Luntz, Stephen (29 March 2022). "Discovery of Piccard Mons". www.iflscience.com.
^ Luntz, Stephen (29 March 2022). "Piccard Mons Taller than the Andes". www.iflscience.com.
^ Singer, Kelsi; White, Oliver; Schmitt, Bernard; Rader, Erika; Protopapa, Silvia; Grundy, William; Cruikshank, Dale; Bertrand, Tanguy; Schenk, Paul; McKinnan, William; Stern, S. Alan; Dhingra, Rajani; Runyon, Kirby; Beyer, Ross; Bray, Veronica; Ore, Cristina; Spencer, John; Moore, Jeffery; Nimmo, Francis; Keane, James; Young, Leslie; Olken, Catherine; Lauer, Tod; Weaver, Harold; Ennico-Smith, Kimberly (29 March 2022). "Large-scale cryovolcanic resurfacing on Pluto". Nature Communications. 13 (1): 1542. arXiv:2207.06557. Bibcode:2022NatCo..13.1542S. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-29056-3. PMC 8964750. PMID 35351895.
^ Moore, Jeffery (18 March 2016). "Geology of Pluto". Science. 351 (6279): 1284–1293. arXiv:1604.05702. doi:10.1126/science.aad7055. PMID 26989245.
^ Fernandez, Elizabeth (12 May 2022). "How Volcanoes formed on Pluto". Big Think.
^ Crane, Leah (29 March 2022). "Piccard Mons is an Effusive Cryovolcano". New Scientist.
^ Fagents, Sarah; Lopes, Rosaly; Quick, Lynnae; Gregg, Tracy. "Cryovolcanism" (PDF). ntrs.nasa.gov.
^ Hand, Eric (9 November 2015). "Ice volcanoes spotted on Pluto, suggest internal heat source". www.science.org.