The dwarf planet’s surface is made up of a crust, which includes huge icy mountains, that is very unlikely to have anything living on it. But underneath that could be warm oceans, which might be able to support life, the physicist has said. Although the presence of watery environments beneath Pluto was not proven yet, Cox believes that it’s certainly possible that life could exist, which could be likely to be simple life forms, such as single-celled organisms.
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Cox, who said in the past that humans could be the only complex life in our galaxy, told The Times that New Horizons’ flyby has revealed that there may be a subsurface ocean on Pluto, and if our understanding of life as we know it on Earth is correct, then there are all the chances that there could be something living in those seas on the dwarf planet.
English physicist Brian Cox believes that there is a possibility of alien life on Pluto.
Alan Stern, principal investigator of New Horizons, said 2014 MU69 is a “great choice” because it is just the right type of Kuiper Belt object the Decadal Survey had wanted the team to visit.
Last month, the New Horizons probe traveled past Pluto, reaching within 7,800 miles (12,500km) of its surface.
There’s still much more to do to fully understand the planet.
Scientists will have to study the similar planets which are closer to Earth before they can draw some conclusions about Pluto and its moons.
HuffPost’s spin on his remarks to the Times was decidedly less nuanced: “Alien Life On Pluto Exists, Says Professor Brian Cox“.
NASA plans to launch a life-hunting mission to the Jupiter moon Europa and possibly to the Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus by 2020.
The New Horizons spacecraft completed an astounding three billion-mile journey across our solar system and performed a flyby of Pluto in July, capturing detailed images of the dwarf planet’s surface as well as its many moons, including Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra.
As of the moment, researchers have only observed around five percent of the data provided by the New Horizons.
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Cox added that science is telling us now that “complex life is probably rare”. “We’re physically insignificant and yet probably very valuable”.
