Blue sky Pluto. And the water – Republic

     Blue sky Pluto. And the water
 

Photos uploaded by the probe New Horizons show a rare atmosphere of Pluto

The US space agency NASA presented its first color photo of the New Horizons spacecraft examining Pluto. They show a beautiful blue dwarf planet’s atmosphere and traces of water ice on the surface.

– Who would have thought a blue sky in the Kuiper Belt? – He asked the chief mission scientist Alan Stern, New Horizons. – It is beautiful.

According to NASA scientists a rare particles floating in the atmosphere of Pluto are likely to be gray or red. But the way scatter blue light caught the attention of astronomers – not only for its beauty, but mainly because it allows them to determine the chemical composition of the particles. – Blue sky usually is the result of the scattering of sunlight by the very fine particles. On Earth, this is due to nitrogen compounds – Carly Howett said of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado. – On Pluto seem to be a little bigger – it probably compounds, which we refer to as tholins.

tholins formed from organic compounds such as methane and ethane, irradiated with ultraviolet radiation. They are common in space – on icy objects orbiting the distant orbits of the solar system. They usually have a reddish-brown. Pluto are quite high above the surface – approx. 130 km.

On Earth tholins (a name made famous astronomer Carl Sagan) does not occur in nature. The researchers speculate that in the early days of the Earth, the comet containing tholins could provide organic matter, which was essential for the emergence of life. In laboratory experiments demonstrated that they have formed amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

This is not the end of interesting information from Pluto. The probe New Horizons spotted a few small areas on the surface of the dwarf planet, which probably frozen water accumulates. The observations are the result of the work of Ralph spectrometer on board the probe. Interestingly, there where it accumulates water ice, scientists also noticed a greater concentration tholinów.

– The big spaces Pluto did not have any traces of water ice, probably because they are masked by other types ice – says Jason Cook of the team analyzing the data from the probe. – Understanding why the ice you can see exactly where we saw him is a mystery to us.

Scientists working for NASA is still analyzing photographs taken by the New Horizons during a close flyby on Pluto mid-July. The probe sends them still – and so it will be for many more months. New Horizons is currently approx. 5 billion kilometers from Earth – and 100 million kilometers beyond Pluto.

Thursday’s conference NASA – despite the fact that revealing the presence of water on a distant planet dwarf – is However, some disappointment. All the main mission scientist Alan Stern, who previously heated the atmosphere announcing “bomb” to measure water flowing on Mars. During one of the lectures at the University of Alberta, Canada announced that NASA will reveal the “surprising” discovery on Pluto. “This world is alive! Has the weather, the atmosphere is geologically active,” – said Stern. “NASA does not allow me to tell you what’ll reveal on Thursday” – tempting. And again: “The year 2015 will go into textbooks.”

After all the British newspapers have printed information, and Stern gave them also on Twitter. But apparently, NASA told him to repent. A few hours later, Dr. Alan Stern wrote that he had been misunderstood, and NASA will be the conference as usual. Rumors about the “sensational news on Pluto,” described as totally false.

NASA and Americans generally very dependent on Pluto. It is the only planet discovered by American astronomer (Clyde Tombaugh in 1930.). By 2006, he was regarded as “wholesome” planet, but later, due to the discovery of another similar to it objects was demoted by the International Astronomical Union to the status of dwarf planet. Just before 19 January 2006, to Pluto – the planet yet – launched the New Horizons mission, which is the scientific head of Dr. Stern.

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