NASA's New Horizons finds blue skies and water ice on Pluto. (Photo : YouTube )
NASA's New Horizon spacecraft has served a great deal in keeping scientists and mankind informed about the outer space. Recently, the probe transmitted more images to the Earth from its Dwarf planet, Pluto, flyby.
The new photos give a confirmation of frozen water on the surface of Pluto in addition to the planet's atmospheric particle-induced "blue skies."
According to an official statement from NASA concerning the findings, the dwarf planet's blue skies or "blue hazes" are actually "haze particles;" based on their specific formation. They are in essence "sooth-like particles we call tholins," which are an equivalent of nitrogen particles on Earth. In spite of the particles producing blue light, they themselves are most probably red or gray in color.
The spacecraft also managed to capture some stills of water ice on the planet's surface. Scientists identified the water ice using information gathered by New Horizons' Ralph spectral composition mapper.
Although it has been known for some time that ice exists on the small planet (though mostly made up of nitrogen ice, with traces of methane and carbon monoxide ice), according to Worldcat, there was no prior confirmation that frozen water could be found on Pluto. A further intriguing twist is that the ice water on the dwarf planet is not blue or clear, but it is red.
However, scientists so far have no clear answer as to why the color of Pluto's frozen water is red.
Silvia Protopapa from the University of Maryland and one of the members of the New Horizon's team, admitted, "We don't yet understand the relationship between water ice and the reddish tholin colorants on Pluto's surface."
