When NASA’s New Horizons mission flew past Pluto in 2015, it gave humanity our first glimpse of a colossal depression on the isolated world. It's named Sputnik Planitia. Comparable in size to ...

A deep basin called Sputnik Planitia, which makes up the “left lobe” of the heart, is home to much of Pluto’s nitrogen ice. The basin covers an area spanning 745 miles by 1,242 miles ...

This cutaway image of Pluto shows a section through the area of Sputnik Planitia, with dark blue representing a subsurface ocean and light blue for the frozen crust. Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert!

One of the most memorable images taken by New Horizons is that of Pluto’s "heart" feature. The heart-shaped glacier, nicknamed Sputnik for Earth’s first human-made satellite, is nearly 600 ...