Scientists from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokushima University, Osaka University, and the University of California in Santa Cruz were also involved. Pluto's dramatically uneven ice shell thins at Sputnik Planitia, which scientists think contains a subsurface ocean. “To maintain an ocean, Pluto needs to retain heat inside,” reads the paper. However, with the gas layer, it would take more than a billion years. If distant, icy Pluto has a liquid water ocean beneath its surface, protected by a layer of gas hydrates, might that ocean contain life?

Source: Forbes May 22, 2019 12:21 UTC