The latest images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft are in, and Pluto apparently looks a look more Earth-like than scientists were expecting.
Scientists are stunned over the strangely familiar, arctic look of Pluto’s majestic icy mountains, streams of frozen nitrogen, and haunting low-lying hazes.
The new images also provide evidence for a remarkably Earth-like “hydrological” cycle on Pluto – but involving soft and exotic ices, including nitrogen, rather than water ice.
Remember Pluto’s “heart” that took over social media recently? Just to the east of it, bright areas seem to have been blanketed by these exotic ices. The ice, which may have evaporated from the surface of the heart (which scientists call Sputnik Planum) and then been redeposited to the east. The new Ralph imager panorama also reveals glaciers flowing back into Sputnik Planum from this blanketed region; these features are similar to the frozen streams on the margins of ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica.
Pluto’s ‘Heart’: Sputnik Planum is the informal name of the smooth, light-bulb shaped region on the left of this composite of several New Horizons images of Pluto. The brilliantly white upland region to the right may be coated by nitrogen ice that has been transported through the atmosphere from the surface of Sputnik Planum, and deposited on these uplands. The box shows the location of the glacier detail images below.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
“We did not expect to find hints of a nitrogen-based glacial cycle on Pluto operating in the frigid conditions of the outer solar system,” said Alan Howard, a member of the mission’s Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. “Driven by dim sunlight, this would be directly comparable to the hydrological cycle that feeds ice caps on Earth, where water is evaporated from the oceans, falls as snow, and returns to the seas through glacial flow.”
“Pluto is surprisingly Earth-like in this regard,” Stern added. “No one predicted it.”
In this small section of the larger crescent image of Pluto, the setting sun illuminates a fog that’s cut by the parallel shadows of hills and small mountains. The image was taken from a distance of 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers), and the width of the image is 115 miles (185 kilometers).
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
“In addition to being visually stunning, these low-lying hazes hint at the weather changing from day to day on Pluto, just like it does here on Earth,” said Will Grundy, lead of the New Horizons Composition team from Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona.
“This image really makes you feel you are there, at Pluto, surveying the landscape for yourself,” New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern said. “But this image is also a scientific bonanza, revealing new details about Pluto’s atmosphere, mountains, glaciers and plains.”
NASA
In case you missed it: These are the must-see tweets about Pluto
July 14, 2015
Science, incredible endeavours of human capabilities, and Pluto: a perfect recipe for fun and wit on Twitter. Here’s a roundup of some of our favorite tweets making the rounds today as NASA’s New Horizons spaceship got up close and personal with the former planet.
The best thing about the Pluto image from NASA today is the silhouette of Pluto the dog right on it. pic.twitter.com/hVqD5QTwGz — Scott Johnson (@scottjohnson) July 14, 2015
Introducing #Pluto! Hubble vs. #NewHorizons (via @imbadatlife) #PlutoFlyby pic.twitter.com/syMDvrue0J — Berkeley Lab (@BerkeleyLab) July 14, 2015
Here is the 2nd coolest Pluto pic today: Seen through a comet’s snowstorm! http://t.co/YvZ8zzB3Fd pic.twitter.com/9VcgRvdVZR
— Phil Plait (@BadAstronomer) July 14, 2015
The @NASANewHorizons team reacts to seeing images of Pluto #PlutoFlyby @nasahqphoto pic.twitter.com/E8BODPnvg9
— NASA Goddard (@NASAGoddard) July 14, 2015
Ternura #Pluto pic.twitter.com/BxTdXpQc7k — Matty Marek (@MattyAranguiz) July 14, 2015
Check this out: the best Pluto pictures science could manage in 1930, 2010 and yesterday http://t.co/ONRSbBd9bh pic.twitter.com/18LVdptrf9 — The Economist (@EconSciTech) July 14, 2015
“What’s up Pluto?” pic.twitter.com/YZx32qCQxL — Hamptons Television® (@HamptonsTV) July 14, 2015
Pluto looked surprised to see us. pic.twitter.com/QAT62sfPxD — P@ (@Pat_Cunningham) July 14, 2015
It takes 4.5 hours for light to travel from Pluto to Earth, but it took the Earthlings 9 years to to get there! #PlutoFlyby — Jefril Amboy (@Sir_Amboy) July 14, 2015
We’ve finally added Pluto to the family portrait of the Solar System http://t.co/4GnuUe8ROK pic.twitter.com/kELeciZ3Yi — Business Insider (@businessinsider) July 14, 2015
RT @mdy1: You could ride a bicycle around Pluto’s moons Hydra and Nix in an afternoon. Their sizes vs. Denver: pic.twitter.com/cfrTXEAeOv — CPR News (@NewsCPR) July 14, 2015
@NASA Can we get comfirmation that Pluto is in fact the Care Bear homeworld? #pluto #NewHorizons pic.twitter.com/bmCFNMJ9Y6 — Crashtestgamer (@Crashtestgamer) July 14, 2015
GODDAMMIT pic.twitter.com/pwfKpmyumA — Luke Bailey (@imbadatlife) July 14, 2015
Dear Earth, Remember when you guys demoted me from being a planet, crushing the spirits of underdogs everywhere? I do. Signed, Pluto
— Sarah Purdy (@PurdyAwesome4) July 14, 2015
My dog can’t decide if the white area looks like a heart or like Pluto the dog! @AntonioParis @scottjohnson pic.twitter.com/Kpx4R4E7Hl
— Manuela Rossol (@Abana09) July 14, 2015
Pluto vs Pluto… here’s how we viewed the planet in 1996 versus the beautiful image we have today… pic.twitter.com/nrg4NQlu4O
— Cody Matz (@CodyMatzFox9) July 14, 2015
Pluto sent a love note back to Earth via @NASANewHorizons. This is the last image taken before today’s #PlutoFlyby. pic.twitter.com/a2AE20LHcR
— NASA (@NASA) July 14, 2015