Scientists see clouds on the images of Pluto – Express-News

07.03

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> On the first images of Pluto taken at close range, the scientists spotted the cloud, says New Scientist. Frames made New Horizons automatic interplanetary station. Plutonic clouds may consist of nitrogen and methane, acetylene, ethylene, and ethane. The clouds appeared on the submitted station pictures in September of last year, but it has become known only now.

The head of the mission New Horizons Alan Stern says that these photos allow feel are on Pluto’s orbit and at the same time give scientists an idea about its atmosphere, glaciers and mountains. Thus, the presence of haze suggests the presence of Pluto dynamic geological processes and a very changeable weather.

Scientists now believe that Pluto has something similar to terrestrial hydrological cycle. The nitrogen ice on Pluto is in motion, like a terrestrial glaciers, and is continually replenished by precipitation from the atmosphere

Earlier, New Horizons probe got photos of unusual phenomenon on Pluto -. How methane snow deposited on the surface of the “dark” part dwarf planet, the so-called “region of Cthulhu”, which acquired its characteristic red color as a result of “bombing” of its methane ice sunlight, NASA reported.

Next to striking the “heart” of Pluto, the region Tombaugh, is it dark side – the so-called region of Cthulhu, whose surface is covered with a large number of Tolya – dark red and brown color substances arising from the decomposition of molecules of methane rays of sunlight and their connection to the more complex hydrocarbon chains

Now the research team. New Horizons received direct confirmation of this assumption -. probe transmitted to Earth detailed photos of the region, where you can see the fresh deposits of methane snow has not reddened by the action of the sun rays

the automatic interplanetary station New Horizons July 14 turned out to be as close to the Pluto and its moons. In 2019 it reaches the planetoid 2014 MU69, located at a distance of 1.6 billion kilometers from the planet in the Kuiper belt

The main objective of New Horizons -. Study of Pluto and its satellite Charon. Scientific equipment installed at the plant, designed to collect data on the availability at the dwarf planet’s magnetosphere, the composition of its atmosphere, surface structure and interactions with Charon.