First Real Images of Pluto | New Horizons

 

it's the gift that keeps giving  over five years has passed since the new  horizons spacecraft completed its  historic nine-day flyby of pluto  and today we're still sifting through  the data and uncovering new things about  the one-time planet  now dwarf planet so  what's been discovered so far welcome to  fagnominol  in today's article we're going into the  far reaches of the solar system  in the first real pictures of pluto  the mission the new horizons spacecraft  was launched in 2005  with a mission to be the first  spacecraft to explore pluto  and its moon up close and venture on  deep into the koopie belt lurking beyond  it took nine years for the observer to  reach pluto  traveling longer faster and further  than any previous deep spacecraft ever  launched  thanks to advanced rockets boosting its  speed to an  insane 36 400  miles per hour that would get you from  new york to la  in a shade under four minutes the whole  way there it took  hundreds of images and recorded data  that changed how we view the inner  workings of our solar system  once new horizons arrived in 2015 it  participated in a nine-day photo shoot  with pluto  that recorded so much information that  there is easily  another decade's worth of work to piece  it all together  but it's the pictures that say more than  words ever could  even now new horizons has significant  fuel stores remaining  and has almost completed its main  mission with proper planning  a burn could redirect you towards  neighboring stars in an effort to  further our understanding  of potentially life-supporting  exoplanets  no stranger to controversy back in 2006  people were outraged cries of back in my  day  and when i was at school rang out as  textbooks were rewritten  amongst public outcry why well based on  new data  pluto wasn't a planet anymore  the international astronomical union had  voted to reclassify  and change its status to dwarf planet  for most people  a planet is a planet but for astronomers  when notorious sticklers for accuracy  they had to show one of the greatest  strengths of science  the ability to change long-held views in  light  of new evidence pluto was only  discovered in 1930  and was relatively late to the planetary  party still  it was the true oddball of the group it  has an irregular eccentric orbit  one that isn't circular at all and  actually puts it closer to the sun  than neptune for 20 out of its 248 year  orbital duration  the first clue it's also so tiny that  earth's moon  is five times larger the second clue  as the focus remained on our tiny and  frozen  most distant neighbor other objects were  observed in its vicinity  in 1992 this was to be the koopa belt  similar to the asteroid belt between  mars and jupiter  it's full of hundreds of thousands of  rocky  icy bodies and more than a trillion  comets remnants from the early solar  system out beyond neptune  further study in 2005 unveiled eris  which was at that time thought to be our  10th planet  it's roughly the same size as pluto and  has an  even crazier elliptical orbit one that  crosses well in field of pluto's  and almost into neptunes the discovery  of additional coupier belt planets almia  and hakamaki that same year that were  two-thirds of the size  put scientists in a tough spot at what  size does a planet stop being a planet  and start being something else the  answer  was to demote pluto to the newly coined  term dwarf  planet yes pluto  harris haumea and hakeem have  planet-like attributes  they're all in a solar centric orbit but  by this definition  pally's comet is a planet too yes  they have sufficient mass for  self-gravity within the serous asteroid  in the inner belt is also a planet  the separation lies in the fact that a  dwarf planet does not have a circular  orbit  enduring this orbit crosses into the  territory of a planet  it's just as well too as the new  horizons has allowed us to see further  than ever before although there are  still three recognized dwarf planets in  the koopie belt  there are 127 more awaiting official  classification  and well over 500 other possible  candidates  by looking closer at pluto we found an  extended family of dwarven planetary  cousins in the outer reaches of our  system  have a heart who knew pluto had a heart  there's a large surface area known as  the tomba reggio  that forms a great big love heart shape  on the planet's surface  the left lobe is an ice cream  cone-shaped plane covered in frozen  carbon monoxide  an area that is extremely flat and lacks  impact craters from meteorites  this suggests that this part of pluto is  very geologically young  and no more than a hundred million years  old there is a possibility that geologic  processes are still shaping the surface  even now sputnik planeta  is a particularly thick section of this  left lobe  a 1600 mile wide chunk of nitrogen  with ice over six miles deep that is the  last known glacier in the solar system  larger than the state of texas it's  suspected that a great  subsurface frozen ocean spans the whole  area  and has added so much weight that it  changed the orientation of the planet  the right lobe is a series of light and  dark streaks a few miles long and all  aligned in the same direction  harsh winds could be responsible for  carving out sections of the frozen  carbon monoxide  as they rip their way across the plains  hidden water at first the big discovery  was finding water  on mars now we've discovered frozen  water in varying amounts on every planet  in our solar system  except venus on pluto there are mountain  ranges as  high as 11 000 feet comparable to the  rocky mountains that make their way from  canada  through central america and into new  mexico  frozen methane and nitrogen ice cover  these peaks and are  abundant on its surface but are not  strong enough to support such  gigantic geological structures this  points to there being a high  likelihood that the mountains are formed  on a layer of bedrock composed of water  ice  there are significant differences to how  each form of ice reflects light across  the planet's surface  giving it the appearance of snake skin  great atmosphere when pluto is closer to  the sun  the surface ice starts to thaw and forms  a very thin  atmosphere of mostly nitrogen and some  methane  the low mass of the planet and  subsequently low gravity 120th that of  earth  allows this thin atmosphere to extend up  to a much higher  altitude than on earth even though this  atmosphere lacks the density to form  liquid  it may have done so in the past the  tombar regio is home to what appears to  be  a great frozen lake fed by the ancient  river channels  it's theorized that atmosphere at this  time was 40 times that of mars  or roughly 40 percent that of earth the  flyby of 2015 provided evidence that  clouds of acetylene  ethane and hydrogen cyanide were present  in the terminated boundary where  daylight and darkness meet on the planet  organically grown pluto is one of the  coldest places in the solar system  sitting at a negative 375 degrees  fahrenheit  it's to be expected as its wild uber  takes it as far  as 49 times the distance from the sun as  earth's  some substances on the surface that  aren't covered in methane  carbon monoxide or nitrogen ice absorb  more  ultraviolet light than expect the  spectral features of this absorption  point to the presence of hydrocarbons  the basic building blocks of life pluto  has a ruddy red glow  the rosy cheeks phenomenon adds more  weight to the presence of  organic molecules on the surface pluto  seems to have grown redder over time  in what could be seasonal changes  depending on how far it is from the sun  and its position along its abnormal  orbit  the reddish color is also present on its  moon charon  up around its north pole it's though  that the compounds that were carried  over when parts of the extremely high  thin atmosphere were lost and  consolidated on pluto's nearest moon  did life find a way organic molecules  presence of an atmosphere and liquid  water clouds of gases that act as  biological markers  it's perfectly conceivable that at one  point life could have existed on this  far  out frozen dwarf planet the only  ingredient missing  is heat but new research has shown that  it's probable  that there may still be a warm core that  has remained  present on pluto since its birth and a  layer of liquid water below the icy  crust  there are great extensional cracks in  the surface ice  explained by heat escaping from the warm  ocean below  on earth warm oceans require sunlight as  energy to fuel the life living there  but on pluto alternate path reactions  between organic molecules  may provide the chemical energy needed  to sustain life  if life can exist on pluto it can exist  anywhere