What proved to be a major mystery for the world, last year on July 14 we got to see the first sight of the dwarf planet Pluto. The images that were provided to us showed that the planet has a ‘heart’ shaped feature carved on the face of the planet.
This gave the scientists a whole new perspective to look into the world unseen. So whatever that scientist have devised/observed from the New Horizon’s FlyBy of last year is penned in the science papers that was released yesterday.
These are the excerpts from the various papers.
“Observing Pluto and Charon up close has caused us to completely reassess thinking on what sort of geological activity can be sustained on isolated planetary bodies in this distant region of the solar system, worlds that formerly had been thought to be relics little changed since the Kuiper Belt’s formation,” said Jeff Moore, lead author of the geology paper from NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.
“We see variations in the distribution of Pluto's volatile ices that point to fascinating cycles of evaporation and condensation,” said Will Grundy of the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, and lead author of the composition paper.
“We’ve discovered that pre-New Horizons estimates wildly overestimated the loss of material from Pluto’s atmosphere,” said Fran Bagenal, from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and lead author of the particles and plasma paper.
“We’ve also discovered that methane, rather than nitrogen, is Pluto’s primary escaping gas. This is pretty surprising, since near Pluto’s surface the atmosphere is more than 99 percent nitrogen”, said SwRI’s Randy Gladstone of San Antonio.
Scientists also are analyzing the first close-up images of Pluto’s small moons—Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. Discovered between 2005 and 2012, the four moons range in diameter from about 25 miles (40 kilometers) for Nix and Hydra to about six miles (10 kilometers) for Styx and Kerberos.
More Report on NASA.
Featured Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Gladstone et al./Science (2016)
Image 2 Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
