Scientists have uncovered the first evidence of landslides on Pluto, revealing that the distant dwarf planet’s icy surface is shaped by powerful gravitational forces in ways not previously confirmed.
Researchers report their findings in the journal Icarus. The discovery fills a notable gap: while landslides have been spotted across the solar system on rocky and icy worlds — including on Pluto’s large moon Charon — none had been clearly identified on Pluto itself until now.
“Our re-examination of high-resolution images obtained by the New Horizons mission has resulted in the first clear identification of landslides on Pluto,” the team states. The six large landslides they mapped sit inside impact craters near the edge of the bright, nitrogen-rich plain called Sputnik Planitia. These features involve dramatic drops of 1.5 to 2.2 kilometers and stretch outward as far as 14.5 kilometers, covering areas up to about 130 square kilometers.
Before this study, researchers knew Pluto was geologically complex, with mountains, tectonic cracks, and young surfaces. Yet earlier hints of mass movement, such as lobate debris aprons, were interpreted as resulting from other processes like thermal stresses or flowing nitrogen ice rather than classic landslides. The new work now shows that gravitational slope failures are also at play.
The researchers, led by Marco Emanuele Discenza and Maria Teresa Brunetti, analyzed visible images and digital elevation data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. They focused on steep crater walls, spotting telltale head scarps where material broke away, lobate deposits where it came to rest, and internal features like ridges and blocks. The landslides cluster on northern and western crater rims, with one appearing to be triggered by a smaller, younger impact that destabilized the slope.
“These observations provide direct evidence that gravitational slope processes contribute to shaping Pluto’s surface, and expand our understanding of the geomorphological activity on icy bodies in the Solar System,” the authors write.
The Pluto landslides show high mobility, similar to long-runout events on bodies like Ceres and Mars. On airless, icy worlds, factors such as subsurface volatiles or impact shaking may help material travel farther than expected. The team notes that small temperature shifts could alter near-surface ice and reduce friction, though they caution that more data would be needed to pin down exact triggers.
NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute
“The identification of landslides on the surface of Pluto indicates that gravitational slope instabilities are widespread and previously undisclosed processes that may have contributed to shaping the dwarf planet’s surface,” the researchers write in the paper.
The study has been published in the journal Icarus.
