10-09-2015, 12:05 PM
|
#103
|
|
Looooooooooooooch
|
First Mars...now Pluto? 
Pluto: NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reveals blue skies and red water ice
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-0...s-show/6840030
Quote:
Pluto has blue skies and patches of red frozen water, according to the latest data from NASA's unmanned New Horizons probe, which made a historic flyby of the dwarf planet in July.
"Large expanses of Pluto don't show exposed water ice because it's apparently masked by other, more-volatile ices across most of the planet," science team member Jason Cook said.
"Understanding why water appears exactly where it does, and not in other places, is a challenge that we are digging into."
The areas that seem to contain the most water ice also appear bright red in recent colour images of Pluto.
"I'm surprised that this water ice is so red," science team member Silvia Protopapa said.
"We don't yet understand the relationship between water ice and the reddish tholin colorants on Pluto's surface."
Scientists have previously reported seeing flowing nitrogen ice glaciers on the surface of Pluto.
|
Pluto blue haze picture:
|
|
|