Exciting news Plutophiles! Last Friday NASA had another Pluto press conference and in it they released the latest images from New Horizons, the most amazing of which was this beauty below.
This is an image taken by the probe after it has sped past Pluto. It is looking back at the night side of the world 7hrs after closest approach. The halo around the edge is the hazy atmosphere backlit by the sun. It was only recently that we even became sure that Pluto had an atmosphere; the data here shows that it does indeed have one, that it extends about 80 miles above the surface and that it is comprised mainly of nitrogen. But the haze is actually the interesting bit. The haze is made up of complex hydrocarbons, like ethylene and acetylene, which are created when ultraviolet light from the sun interacts with methane gas in the atmosphere. The UV light in turn changes the hydrocarbons into tholins, these fall back to the surface and are what gives the dwarf planet its now distinctive dark patches.
Pluto has once again, however, thrown up a mystery. These hazes are created by the hydrocarbons condensing into little ice crystals, but it was thought that Pluto would be too warm for this to happen at a height of above 20 miles or so; yet we're seeing haze as high as 80 miles and we have absolutely no idea how. Some new ideas are needed to come up with a satisfactory explanation for this, but that's a good thing; if the answer to your question doesn't throw up at least a couple of new questions then you're not doing it right and that, Science Fans, is one of the exciting things about the frontiers of science.
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