NASA Just Announced Pluto’s Skies Are Blue.
The New Horizons has once again brought amazement to all space enthusiasts with new footage of Pluto’s blue hazes juxtaposed against the darkness of space, and according to NASA, the new photo was processed to come as close to the human perception of colour as possible from that same angle.
The blues are best seen during sunrise and sunset, but it wouldn’t be the same during the day. The New Horizons team is still looking into this for further detail, so there’s no saying what new images may bring, but so far, these blue hazes give the team a good idea of what the particles are made of.
‘Tholins’ Give the Planet this Coloration
Carly Howlett, a member of the New Horizons researchers, reveals in a NASA statement that a blue sky often comes from scattered sunlight in very small particles. On Earth, these particles are very tiny nitrogen molecules, and on Pluto, they seem to be larger, though still relatively small. The soot-like particles are called tholins.
Tholins are probably closer to red or gray in color, the statement reveals, and it’s likely they form in Pluto’s upper atmosphere, where methane and nitrogen get ionized. These molecule, then, would recombine and fall down on Pluto’s surface, which gives the planet its red coloring.
The footage was taken by New Horizons as it passed Pluto in July in its journey through the Kupier Belt.
Water Ice Was Also Discovered
The statement expresses the team’s elation, since they didn’t expect to see blue skies in the Kupier Belt, and the images are gorgeous. NASA went on to announce that the New Horizons has discovered ices that are likely hiding water ice in the planet’s surface, which gives the community further excitement about the secrets that Pluto holds.
The frozen water clusters are a bright red in color, which has baffled the agency, and they are looking to explain what exactly the relationship between water ice and the red tholin coloration is.
New Horizons is currently 3 million miles away from Earth, delving deeper into the Kupier Belt and exploring the plethora of objects on it, and if ti’s approved for an extended mission, it’s set to go for 2014 MU69 in 2019. It will possibly reveal another whole world in the depths of the Kupier Belt solar system.
