Pluto Changes
Posted on February 5th, 2010 by Paul Meehan
New imagery released by NASA from the Hubble Space Telescope shows that Pluto is undergoing significant seasonal changes. Once considered a member of the Solar System’s 9 planets, Pluto has since been downgraded to a “dwarf planet”, yet its study remains of great interest.
In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons mission will perform the closest ever fly-by of Pluto, and it is hoped that a vastly more detailed picture of the body will be painted at that time. However, the images released this month already tell us much more about this fascinating world. Over the course of its 248 year seasonal cycle, Pluto undergoes many seasonal changes; in the last two decades, for example, the surface colour has become redder, whilst the atmosphere is brighter. These changes may be attributable to surface ice sublimating on one pole and refreezing at the other.
The images also reveal a very bright area which is rich in carbon monoxide frost – it is thought this particular area will be of great interest to the New Horizons probe as it approaches Pluto in the next 5 years. As with the recent Cassini mission to study Saturn and its moons, the forthcoming visit to Pluto will afford astronomers a wealth of new information about one of our Solar System’s most well known bodies. For now, researchers are fascinated with the new imagery, and it is expected that more findings will be published in due course.
The images are published in the March 2010 edition of the Astronomical Journal.
Citation:
NASA. “New Hubble Maps of Pluto Show Surface Changes.” ScienceDaily 5 February 2010. 5 February 2010 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100204234213.htm.
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