Astrophysicists believe they may have solved the mystery of how Pluto came to be etched with a giant heart shape on its surface — and the explanation is an unromantic one.
Far from the feature having been carved into the icy world’s crust by the winds of time or the presence of a buried ocean, scientists hypothesise that the 1,000 mile-wide feature known as the Tombaugh Regio was more the result of an ancient “splat”.
Their computer simulations suggest that Sputnik Planitia, a pear-shaped basin that makes up the heart’s western lobe, was formed by a slow but “cataclysmic” collision with a planetary body about 435 miles in diameter.
“Pluto’s core is so cold that the rocks remained very hard and did not melt despite
