快猫短视频

It can take a while to get a weather report from the outskirts of the solar system. The New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Pluto last July, may have discovered clouds hovering above the surface, 快猫短视频 can exclusively reveal.

Images released publicly (see bottom image) by the New Horizons team have already shown off Pluto鈥檚 surprisingly complex atmosphere, featuring many layers of haze rising above icy mountains. But in emails and images seen by 快猫短视频, researchers on the mission discuss the possibility that they have spotted individual clouds, pointing to an even richer atmospheric diversity.

The first sign of clouds came on 13 September last year, a few days before the public release of the haze pictures. of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona sent an email to a discussion list dedicated to analysing New Horizons results about Pluto鈥檚 atmosphere. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a few fairly localized low-altitude features just above the limb that I鈥檝e drawn lame arrows pointing to, but also a few bright cloud-like things that seem to be above and cutting across the topography in the circled area,鈥� he wrote, attaching a picture (see below).

Grundy had spotted features in the haze on the edge 鈥� or 鈥渓imb鈥� 鈥� of Pluto that seemed to stand out from the distinct layers. But more intriguingly, he had also seen a bright feature crossing different parts of the landscape, suggesting it was hovering above.

The email kicked off a discussion as to whether the clouds were real, because it was difficult to see whether they cast shadows on the ground. The team also deliberated over the exact distinction between clouds and hazes. 鈥淥ne way to think of it is that clouds are discrete features, hazes widespread,鈥� wrote Alan Stern, who heads up the New Horizons mission.

There has been no public mention of the clouds, suggesting that the team isn鈥檛 sure about the detection. In February emails, the team discussed a paper due to be published in the journal Science entitled 鈥淭he Atmosphere of Pluto as Observed by New Horizons鈥� which only mentions clouds in passing, as an as yet-unsolved mystery.

But an email sent by of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, on 1 March includes a picture (see top of article) of a cloud that seems to stand out from the surface. 鈥淚n the first image an extremely bright low altitude limb haze above south-east Sputnik on the left, and a discrete fuzzy cloud seen against the sunlit surface above Krun Macula (I think) on the right,鈥� he wrote.

聽The emails do not discuss what the clouds might be made of. They are likely to be of similar composition to the general atmosphere, which according to the team鈥檚 upcoming Science paper, consists of nitrogen, with traces of methane, acetylene, ethylene and ethane.

The emails suggest that the top cloud image has only just been downloaded from New Horizons. The probe has many gigabytes of data sitting in its memory but is hurtling further away from Earth, meaning it takes a long time to transmit its findings back 鈥� we won鈥檛 have the full data set until nearly the end of this year. Perhaps there are even more cloud pictures up there, waiting to be received.

Pluto was famously demoted from planethood in 2006, and is now officially a dwarf planet, but these cloud pictures could heighten calls for its reinstatement. The increasingly apparent complexity of Pluto鈥檚 atmosphere means it clearly passes what Stern calls the 鈥淪tar Trek鈥� test 鈥� you know a planet when you see one out the window.