"The Violent Origins of Pluto's Heart: Astrophysicists Uncover Cosmic Collision"

An international team of astrophysicists has solved the mystery of Pluto's heart-shaped feature, attributing it to a giant and slow oblique-angle impact with a planetary body over 400 miles in diameter. The impact formed Sputnik Planitia, a region predominantly filled with nitrogen ice, and the study suggests that Pluto's inner structure is different from previous assumptions, indicating no subsurface ocean. The findings shed new light on Pluto's early history and offer a novel origin hypothesis for its unique surface feature.