Data from New Horizons mission suggest a water-ice ocean lies beneath Pluto's heart-shaped basin

Beneath Pluto's "heart" lies a cold, slushy ocean of water ice, according to data from NASA's New Horizons mission. In a paper published today in the journal Nature, the New Horizons team, including researchers from MIT, reports that the dwarf planet's most prominent surface feature--a heart-shaped region named Tombaugh Regio--may harbor a bulging, viscous, liquid ocean just below its surface.