Just found out Pluto has a glacier bigger than Texas

Was reading a post on the NASA website last night that said Sputnik Planitia is about 1,000 km across. How do they even measure something that far away?

2 comments

2 Comments

william_taylor18d ago

Yeah that's wild isn't it... I spent like an hour last night just watching a documentary about the New Horizons flyby and the numbers still don't feel real to me. They used something called stereo imaging and shadow measurements to figure out the depth, but honestly I just go "wow big ice block" and move on.

the_tessa18d ago

Honestly, what helped me was just looking at photos of Pluto next to something familiar, like a city or a mountain. It's SO much easier to grasp the scale when you see it compared to something you've actually been to. Makes the "wow big ice block" feeling WAY more real.