Internally heated convection as a possible mechanism at the origin of polygonal structures on Pluto's surface.

Recently, the New Horizons spacecraft obtained high resolution pictures of Pluto's surface, and revealed, among other surface features, a large nitrogen ice glacier. The surface of this glacier, informally named Sputnik Planum, is separated into a network of polygonal cells with a wavelength of about 30 km. Recent studies (McKinnon et al. 2016, Trowbridge et al. 2016) interpreted this network to the surface expression of thermal convection drives by the heat coming from the icy mantle and constrain the properties of the glacier, including its thickness. Here, we first show that such a bottom heated convective system is not able to produce a polygonal structure as observed on Sputnik Planum. We therefore consider an internally heated system that, for a certain range of parameters, does produce a similar surface planform, which in turn constrains the possible parameters of the glacier. Combining scaling laws, published in earlier studies with the observation of the surface planform, we establish relationships between the critical parameters of Sputnik Planum. In particular, for reasonable temperature jump across the glacier (2-10 K) and nitrogen ice viscosities (1013-5 1014 Pa.s), our calculations indicate that the glacier thickness and the surface heat flux are in the ranges 2-13 km and 0.1-10 mW.m2, respectively. The fact that only internal heating seems able to reproduce the polygonal structure found on Sputnik Planum raises the question of what physical processes produce the internal heating.