Never-before-seen dunes on Pluto spotted in New Horizons images

Wind and a process called sublimation helped sculpt the ripples, a new study suggests

Pluto dunes

BLOWING IN THE WIND  This image from the New Horizons spacecraft’s 2015 flyby of Pluto shows dunes (center bottom and right) along a mountain range. The ripples are made of sand-sized grains of methane ice, researchers say.

SWRI, JHU Applied Physics Lab, NASA

Pluto’s heart-shaped plains are striped with sand dunes, where the sand is made of solid methane ice, a new study finds.