CNN Newsource / X-News
Clyde Tombaugh did not suspect that there will be so close to the world that discovered it. On Tuesday at lunchtime spaceship the size of a dishwasher was an American astronomer handful of ashes into orbit of Pluto.
After nine years of travel NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, defeating billions of kilometers, he arrived in the vicinity of the dwarf planet and its moons. The most mysterious cluster of objects in the solar system reveals its secrets.
About Pluto, we know surprisingly little, and the probe has to change. Let us take the issue of the size of the planet. On Monday, NASA reported that preliminary estimates indicate that Pluto has a diameter of 2370 km. It’s slightly more than the thought Pluto would therefore be greater than Eris, similar to him, the dwarf planet, discovered in 2005. The most recent images taken by the probe New Horizons and published in recent days seen Charon, the largest natural satellite of Pluto.
It turns out that the partner Pluto, so far as shaggy spot visible in telescopes, is dotted with craters and faults, among them is the gulf longer and deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon.
Its surface seems to be much more interesting, than geologists expected. William McKinnon, deputy head of the team of geologists and geophysicists support the probe, he explains that the bottom of one of the craters, broad at 95 km, is mired in darkness, which may indicate that an object collided with the moon so hard that occurred to melt the ice on the surface and to bind to the surface of Charon.
Although Charon and away from him 20 thousand. km an integral pair of Pluto, the moon differs from the dwarf planet now even color. Although it is about half the size of Pluto and rose from the same rock mass rotating in the Kuiper belt, Charon – a candidate for planet status – a gray, while Pluto orange-red. New Horizons spacecraft approached the most Pluto Tuesday at 13.50 Polish time, flying within 12.5 thousand. km from the surface. Five minutes later, Charon passed. Rejecting the Pluto probe for 22 hours. will not communicate with Earth, at this time is to take pictures.
Soon, NASA will publish the best of them, but most of the data we see only in September, when they reach the Earth. Later metal box will fly into space – NASA scientists for now argue about which areas should explore the Kuiper belt next. One of the mysteries that might reveal this mission, it is a strange cloud that later this week diaphragm surface of Pluto, even before the most accurate telescopes. Astronomers are divided on this issue, some believe that it may be atmospheric temperature gradient is large enough to bend the light, others suspect that this fog, which could indicate the presence of active ice volcanoes.
Michael Person, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has devoted much of his career on the prosecution of Pluto’s shadow, hopes that New Horizons will explain the unknown.
Perhaps you can also find out why rich in nitrogen atmosphere of the dwarf planet almost doubled its volume over the last 25 years, adds Dr Person.
Translation: Lidia Rafa
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