Blue skies, frozen water detected on Pluto
by Staff Writers, Miami (AFP) Oct 8, 2015
Pluto has blue skies and patches of frozen water, according to the
latest data out Thursday from NASA's unmanned New Horizons probe, which
made a historic flyby of the dwarf planet in July.Never before has Pluto -- a resident of the distant Kuiper Belt, a frigid region of the solar system beyond Neptune that is home to many comets and asteroids -- been observed in such detail.
"Who would have expected a blue sky in the Kuiper Belt? It's gorgeous," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Along with the announcement, NASA released an image showing a blue layer of haze around Pluto, taken by the New Horizons spacecraft's camera.
Blue skies are seen on Earth because of the scattering of sunlight by very small particles of nitrogen.
"On Pluto they appear to be larger -- but still relatively small -- soot-like particles we call tholins," said science team researcher Carly Howett, also of SwRI.
Read more: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Blue_skies_frozen_water_detected_on_Pluto_999.html