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NASA Space

Pluto's Haze 63

Posted by Soulskill from the all-in-my-brain dept.
Today brings another release of images from NASA's New Horizons probe. This time, it includes an image taken seven hours after closest approach, when the probe was looking back at Pluto. It captured the dwarf planet in silhouette: the body of the planet is in darkness, but the atmosphere is luminous with deflected sunlight. "A preliminary analysis of the image shows two distinct layers of haze -- one about 50 miles (80 kilometers) above the surface and the other at an altitude of about 30 miles (50 kilometers)." Before this picture, scientists didn't expect to see such haze more than 30 kilometers above the surface.

Other findings released today include preliminary indications that Pluto's atmospheric pressure has dropped sharply from early observations. This may indicate that the atmosphere is in the process of freezing and falling to Pluto's surface. Finally, new close-up pictures of the surface transmitted back to Earth show direct evidence of nitrogen ice floes reminiscent of glacier movement on Earth. The dwarf planet also seems to be rich in methane ice and carbon dioxide ice.
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Pluto's Haze More

Pluto's Haze

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  • I suppose I could do the math, but since I'm lazy... if it were possible for you to be standing on the daylight side of Pluto, does anyone know how bright/dark would it be? Is there enough light that you'd be able to see the terrain, at least dimly?

      • Pretty useless. That link says the sunlight on Pluto is about 1.4 x average solar irradiance at Pluto. WTF??? They also give a comparison to Neptune, but unless you've actually been to Neptune that isn't of much use either. What they don't give is a comparison to Earth or (much more useful) Earth in the light of the full moon.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          For comparison a better link to wolfram alpha ...

          http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sunlight+on+pluto+and+neptune+and+uranus+and+saturn+and+jupiter+and+mars+compared+to+earth+and+venus+and+mercury

          Earth: 1319 W/m^2
          Pluto: 1.256W/m^2 (less than 1/1000)

          • I did manage to get Wolfram to give me that set of numbers, but they are neither interesting nor informative. I would be much more interested in seeing how day on the planet Pluto compares to night with moonlight on planet earth. Can anyone get that number from Wolfram?

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by osu-neko ( 2604 )

              I would be much more interested in seeing how day on the planet Pluto compares to night with moonlight on planet earth.

              The sun on Pluto is about 100 times brighter than a full moon on Earth.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ncc74656 ( 45571 ) *

          Pretty useless.

          Try this:

          http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solar+irradiance+of+Pluto+vs+Earth [wolframalpha.com]

          There's a roughly three-order-of-magnitude difference between Earth and Pluto. What that'd actually look like, I can only guess...twilight in the middle of the day, perhaps?

    • Re:During Pluto's day - how light is it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mooglejoe ( 926794 ) on Friday July 24, 2015 @05:43PM (#50178143)
      NASA made this site to give you an idea http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/pl... [nasa.gov]

    • http://www.flicker.space/pluto... [www.flicker.space]

      Basically like dim daylight or bright twilight on Earth.

    • Does it matter how dark? All our future plans for farming Pluto didn't account for plants becoming overripe and potentially explosive!

      The hazes in Pluto’s atmosphere, observed by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, provide a crucial link between the sunlight-driven chemistry in the upper atmosphere and the reddish-brown hydrocarbons called tholins that rain down and darken the surface. The animation shows several steps: 1) Ultraviolet sunlight breaks apart methane in Pluto’s upper atmosphere. 2) This leads to the buildup of complex hydrocarbons, such as ethylene and acetylene

      I'm sure there's a tomato joke squished in there somewhere.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrKaos ( 858439 )

      if it were possible for you to be standing on the daylight side of Pluto

      I don't know the math to calculate if you could see any other planets, I don't think so, however I can imagine that it would be the blackest night in our solar system.

    • I suppose I could do the math, but since I'm lazy... if it were possible for you to be standing on the daylight side of Pluto, does anyone know how bright/dark would it be? Is there enough light that you'd be able to see the terrain, at least dimly?

      I did the math once based on the supposed camera settings they were shooting at, and from my experience since I do concert photography, it was about as much light as a band on stage lit by four red stage lights which seems to be the minimum standard.

  • Freezing and falling to Pluto's surface... if you were that far from the sun, you'd do it to.

  • dwarf is a trigger word (Score:3)

    by turkeydance ( 1266624 ) on Friday July 24, 2015 @05:37PM (#50178123)
    filled with micro-aggression.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by frovingslosh ( 582462 )
      If there are nine people in a room but someone wants to draw a lot of attention to himself he can point to the shortest person and call them a dwarf person and so claim that there are really only eight people in the room.

  • Help me, Help me, oh no... (Score:5, Funny)

    by RevWaldo ( 1186281 ) on Friday July 24, 2015 @05:42PM (#50178137)
    Pluto haze all in our brains
    Latest readings don't seem the same
    An exciting time, you all agree
    For studyin' exometeorology

    .

  • Sadly, the haze is reddish-brown (Score:3)

    by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Friday July 24, 2015 @05:49PM (#50178181)

    Sadly, the haze is reddish-brown, rather than Purple Haze.

  • From TFA

    Ultraviolent sunlight chemically converts hazes into tholins, the dark hydrocarbons that color Pluto’s surface.

    Did we find Clockwork Orange?

  • Miles (Score:1, Redundant)

    by fulldecent ( 598482 )

    Is anyone else embarrassed that NASA uses miles as its primary unit of measure?

    • Re:Miles (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24, 2015 @06:16PM (#50178299)

      The public that pays its bills understands miles, they report in miles.

      One of the scientists at today's press conference actually started discussing things in kilometers and had to correct himself.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tomhath ( 637240 )
      Not me. Mile is a perfectly good unit of measure.

    • Re:Miles (Score:4, Funny)

      by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Friday July 24, 2015 @06:29PM (#50178369)

      Is anyone else embarrassed that NASA uses miles as its primary unit of measure?

      Indeed, I was expecting distances expressed in furlongs.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 )

      Nope! They're an arm of the U.S. government, and report to the American people. If you find it embarrassing, you are free to ignore them. They don't report to you, if you get anything at all from them, consider it a bonus and divide everything by 0.621. You can do math, right?

      Seriously, the metric flame is such a slashdot cliche. I feel embarrassed for you. Does anyone else embarrassed that cliche-spewing posters infest every NASA thread?

  • It has an atmosphere at all.
    "When Pluto is closer to the Sun in its orbit, the warmth from the Sun heats up the frozen ices of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide on Pluto's surface. These ices vaporize and form a temporary atmosphere. When Pluto moves farther from the Sun, the atmosphere freezes and falls back onto Pluto's surface."
    http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech... [caltech.edu]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I don't think it's really too surprising that Pluto has an atmosphere. Almost every body in the solar system with sufficient mass has some atmosphere. Gravity pulls the atmosphere toward the object, and this balances against the low pressure in space that pull the atmosphere away from the object. The balance between gravity and the upward pressure gradient force is called hydrostatic balance. At a large scale, all atmospheres (including Earth) are in hydrostatic balance. The atmosphere is more readily strip

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "I'd expect Pluto's atmosphere to be subject to significant tides because of Charon".

        No, Pluto and Charon are perfectly tidal-locked and face each other during each orbit of their center of gravity.

        Because of this there are no tidal forces acting on either the planetary bodies themselves, nor their atmosphere(s).

  • From the photos it looks like the mountains have pushed up through the ice. I wonder if that is how the 'Moated Mountain" formed, nitrogen ice eroding the geology.

    I have to say this is an appropriate use of the word 'amazing' - Thank you NASA (and the American taxpayer)

  • Best explanation so far (Score:3)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @12:25AM (#50179627) Journal

    The best explanation I've read for the youth of the surface is that Pluto's elliptical orbit results in a heat-and-cool cycle that pumps semi-liquid and/or soft frozen gasses around.

    The relative densities between different materials changes during the near/far cycle, causing push-pull action that gradually squeezes and pumps shit around.

  • Anyone have a mirror of this stuff?

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