back to article YOW! Pluto STUNS boffins with HAZY, SHRINKY atmosphere

The latest New Horizons data blurt from the Kuiper Belt has yet again left astroboffins' flabbers gasted, this time because of its sensational revelations regarding the atmosphere of frosty freezeworld Pluto. Details about the dwarf planet's extraordinary surface have also been revealed by NASA, with flowing nitrogen ice …

  1. Mark 85
    Thumb Up

    Fascinating.....

    and mind blowing to say the least. From Sputnik and the early space race to this. It's a shame New Horizons couldn't have orbited a few times before moving on but we can't have everything.

  2. Rik Myslewski
    Thumb Up

    Bravo!

    Damn, Iain, you're good. Would that El Reg's climate-science reporting were as insightful, balanced, and well-grounded.

    Thanks, mate.

    1. Primus Secundus Tertius

      Re: Bravo!

      "Climate science"??

      The biggest oxymoron of the current credulous era.

  3. JonP
    Pint

    Impressive stuff

    When New Horizons whizzed past Pluto, two dishes from NASA's Deep Space Network fired a pulse of radio waves at the probe so that their refraction through Pluto's atmosphere could be collected...

    Because any other method would be too easy...

    1. KA1AXY

      Re: Impressive stuff

      Well, actually, the pulses were fired *before* New Horizons flew past Pluto...hat tip to those who correctly calculated the travel time of the pulses so they would arrive at the correct time. And another hat tip to the New Horizons programmers who were ready to receive them

      Talk about planning ahead...excellent boffinry all round!

  4. Your alien overlord - fear me

    "With flowing ices, exotic surface chemistry, mountain ranges, and vast haze, Pluto is showing a diversity of planetary geology that is truly thrilling."

    It shows geology of a dwarf planet Shirley? Or has NASA let slip they know Pluto is really a bona-fida planet?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It's still planetary geology. The clue is right there in the world's designation: dwarf planet.

      1. Benchops

        I always thought geology was specifically to do with the earth (because of the "geo" bit). As in geocentric, apogee, perigee ...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      We live on a planet orbiting a star, our Sun. If you're not interested in astronomy, it may come as a surprise to learn that the Sun is a yellow dwarf star - because there are two types of star that are yellow, most of similar size to our sun, but some are flippin' ginormous, which are called yellow giants.

      Which doesn't make the Sun not a star, despite it being a yellow dwarf.

      Likewise, Pluto is a dwarf planet - it's a planet, but a little or dwarf one.

      Can we put the nonsense about Pluto's status to be now, please? :-}

      1. ravenviz Silver badge
        Coat

        I think it's about time the gas giants were reclassified as dwarf brown dwarf stars since some rules I made up say that if a stellar body does not have a lithosphere diameter > 85 - 90% the diameter of the entire body, and gives out more heat than it receives, then it's a brown dwarf.

  5. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    I didn't know Nitrogen could freeze

    I know about liquid nitrogen, and I thought that was the coolest anything could get.

    I look at the pics and nitrogen glaciers and then it hits me : when the heck does nitrogen freeze ? It's already bloody cold when it's liquid, how much cooler does it have to get to actually freeze ?

    So I check it out : nitrogen is liquid below 77 K, solid below 63 K.

    Not a lot of difference there.

    The Universe really is mind-boggling.

    1. Fink-Nottle

      Re: I didn't know Nitrogen could freeze

      > The Universe really is mind-boggling

      You need to remember that the melting point and boiling point you quote are at a standard atmospheric pressure of roughly 1 bar. A cursory look at the N phase diagram of shows that at pluto's atmospheric pressure of 10 microbars, nitrogen sublimates between gas and solid without an intermediate liquid phase.

      Mind you, the physical chemistry of terrestrial snow and ice is surprisingly complex and still not completely understood. The behaviour of Pluto's icy, hydrocarbon-y, nitrogen-y snow is likely to equally challenging to understand in detail.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: I didn't know Nitrogen could freeze

        "The behaviour of Pluto's icy, hydrocarbon-y, nitrogen-y snow is likely to equally challenging to understand in detail."

        They Shall Have Stars - James Blish, 1956, so the sort of behavior ice might exhibit in non-terrestrial environments was being thought about at least way back when.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I didn't know Nitrogen could freeze

      >I know about liquid nitrogen, and I thought that was the coolest anything could get.

      Not thinking of helium, are you?

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Re: Not thinking of helium, are you?

        I wasn't.

        Blimey ! 4 K !!

        Okay, I'm going to bed now. Need to lie down. With a strong drink.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. Primus Secundus Tertius

    Hydrides ?

    Because of the cosmic abundance of hydrogen, we find carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen as their hydrides. Also, elements with odd atomic number (nitrogen) are less abundant than those of even number (carbon, oxygen).

    Perhaps NASA have reasons for suggesting the ice is nitrogen rather than, say, methane. Or perhaps some mixture of methane, ammonia, and water. But please would someone give those reasons.

    1. cray74

      Re: Hydrides ?

      "Perhaps NASA have reasons for suggesting the ice is nitrogen rather than, say, methane. Or perhaps some mixture of methane, ammonia, and water. But please would someone give those reasons."

      New Horizons has more than GoPro cameras. ;) Its "Ralph" and "Alice" tricorder-scanner thingamabobs have spectroscopic functions that would be able to assess the surface composition.

  7. x 7

    nitrogen ice? Sounds a good place to use as a cryogenic store for all those post-apocalypse recovery stores we need of seeds, embryos, semen.....

    1. Tim Starling

      Cryogenic store

      There's a place on the Moon's south pole where the temperature never gets above 35K http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8416749.stm

  8. cray74

    Nitrogen Subsurface Oceans

    The article suggests that nitrogen glaciers might produce enough pressure to sustain a liquid nitrogen subsurface layer, but that's less likely than finding water under ice.

    Like most substances, the liquid form of nitrogen is less dense than the solid. Nitrogen ice would try to sink in liquid. The liquid would probably seep up through overlying glaciers to evaporate on the low-pressure surface. Geysers are possible, though.

    Which is shame, I always liked the liquid nitrogen lakes and oceans theorized for Triton before Voyager got there.

    http://www.psi.edu/sites/default/files/images/staff/hartmann/pic-cat/images/199.jpg

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