Liquid may have recently flowed across Pluto's surface
On August 5, 2026, a Southwest Research Institute team reported the first evidence that liquid still flows on Pluto, on a nitrogen glacier called Sputnik Planitia, which is larger than Texas and Oklahoma combined. Rain is impossible there. Dark streaks near the glacier's northern edge look freshly wetted, most likely by liquid nitrogen rising up through cracks in the surface. Lead author Alan Stern said, "Pluto never stops surprising us, and this new result certainly does that." The findings, drawn from New Horizons images taken in 2015 and 2016, appear in the Planetary Science Journal.
Planetary scientists studying icy worlds beyond Earth now have a working model for how alien surfaces can stay active without sunlight or rain.
Source: SwRI study finds evidence of liquid recently flowing on Pluto’s surface | Southwest Research Institute (swri.org).
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