Fog and flowing rivers of nitrogen ice on Pluto – Money.pl

2015-07-26 11:20

[Photo: sxc / cc / flaivoloka]

NASA scientists have published on Friday a new photo contributed by the planet Pluto probe New Horizons, which does not cease to amaze. They show extensive areas of fog in the atmosphere and relatively young “river” of frozen nitrogen.

“If you walk to the cardiologist, it is better to come out of this room,” – he joked chief project scientist Alan Stern opening the conference press at the headquarters of NASA at Cape Canaveral. “We have some really dizzying discoveries” – he added.

New Horizons probe, which flew on July 14 in just 12.5 thousand. km from Pluto, the dwarf planet located on the far outskirts of the solar system, supply the new photos. They show extensive layer of fog in the atmosphere of up to 160 km altitude. The researchers speculate that this was the mist gives the reddish planet.

An observer standing on the surface of Pluto and looking up, would probably not notice that the fog – said Michael Summers of George Mason University. In fact, the probe detected only after the fog distance from Pluto, when the sun hid behind the planet and its atmosphere podświetliło.

Flowing “river” of frozen nitrogen appear to be relatively young. William McKinnon of Washington University initially rated their age at only a few dozen million years. For comparison, Pluto and the solar system now account for approx. 4.5 billion years. Therefore, it recently, activity in the area is all the more astonishing – said the scientist.

The temperature on Pluto’s surface is minus 229 deg. Celsius and very rare atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. At such a low temperature water ice could not move anywhere. However, according to McKinnon, “river” made up of nitrogen ice that behaves in such conditions as the glaciers on Earth.

Some of the “river” filled – as it seems impact craters creating a lake of frozen nitrogen. One of these craters is the size of metropolitan Washington, DC – said McKinnon. The planet probably also falls nitric snow.

According to the researcher, recent findings seem to confirm that beneath the frozen crust of the planet may be a liquid ocean.

The characteristic clear heart-shaped structure on the surface of Pluto Regio Tombaugh was named in honor of the discoverer of the planet, the American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. The left part of the “heart” is called Planum on the other hand Sputnik (Sputnik Plain), referring to the first artificial satellite of the Earth.

Two outdoor mountain ranges NASA scientists named Hillary and Tenzing to commemorate in this way the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’a who first climbed the highest mountain of the Earth – Mount Everest.

The probe, which is already at a distance of approx. 7.5 million km from Pluto, and only began to transfer captured images and the obtained information. Sending them will take more than a year.

New Horizons now moving into the Kuiper Belt, on the outskirts of circling Pluto. The researchers speculate that there may be at least several bodies similar in size to Pluto. (PAP)

IU / jjj /