Another day, another mind-blowing image from New Horizon’s flyby of Pluto last summer. This time, the spacecraft captured a high-resolution photograph which NASA scientists said reveals a series of never-before-seen layers in the atmosphere of the dwarf planet.
The image is a mosaic of four panchromatic images and was captured by New Horizons using its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) instrument and enhanced by Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) four-color filter data. It sheds new light on the atmosphere of the dwarf planet, and in particular, how it is organized, according to Gizmodo.
The US space agency explains that the blue haze observed in the image is likely photochemical smog caused by the action of sunlight on methane and other molecules found it the atmosphere. This phenomenon produces a mixture of hydrocarbons like acetylene and ethylene which gather into sub-micrometer sized particles and scatter sunlight to create the blue hue.
As they settle, these haze particles form a series of intricate, horizontal layers which extend out around Pluto to altitudes of up to 120 miles (200 km). Also featured in the photo are mountains on the dwarf planet’s limb and dark finger-like shadows known as crepuscular rays.
Image comes on the heels of possible ice volcano photographs
The new atmospheric images come just days after NASA released the first pictures of Wright Mons, an enormous structure believed to be one of two ice volcanoes on the dwarf planet. The mountain was named in honor of aviation pioneers the Wright brothers, and is said to be more than 90 miles (150 km) across and 2.5 miles (4 km) high.
If confirmed to be an ice volcano (also known as a cryovolcano), Wright Mons would be the largest feature of its kind ever discovered in the outer solar system. It, along with Piccard Mons, the other suspected cryovolcano on Pluto, are believed to have played a role in forming the heart-shaped region of the dwarf planet known as Tombaugh Regio, the US space agency explained.
“These are big mountains with a large hole in their summit, and on Earth that generally means one thing – a volcano,” New Horizons scientist Oliver White told the Daily Mail last Thursday. Previously, his colleague Jeff Moore said the team was “not yet ready” to confirm that the two mountains were ice volcanoes, but added that they “sure look suspicious”.
Launched on January 19, 2006, New Horizons was the first mission ever to be sent to the Pluto, having completed a six-month long flyby of the dwarf planet and its moons during summer 2015. It is currently en route to a small Kuiper Belt object (KBO) named 2014 MU69 where, pending approval, it will continue its mission.
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Feature Image: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
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