Pluto has dunes made of frozen methane

Scientists have discovered dunes on Pluto made of tiny frozen grains of methane. The pale grey and white ridges were revealed by Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft on its 2015 fly-by.

A British-led team announced the findings yesterday in the journal Science. Thought to be relatively recent, the parallel rows of dunes are in Pluto’s heart-shaped region at the base of mountains as tall as the Alps and formed from giant blocks of ice with frosty methane snowcaps.

Dunes have been found on Mars, Venus, and Saturn’s moon, but Pluto’s are the only ones to consist of methane.