Blue Skies and Water Ice on Pluto

[Waspie_Dwarf]

New Horizons Finds Blue Skies and Water Ice on Pluto

The first color images of Pluto’s atmospheric hazes, returned by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft last week, reveal that the hazes are blue.

“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 (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado.

The haze particles themselves are likely gray or red, but the way they scatter blue light has gotten the attention of the New Horizons science team. “That striking blue tint tells us about the size and composition of the haze particles,” said science team researcher Carly Howett, also of SwRI. “A blue sky often results from scattering of sunlight by very small particles. On Earth, those particles are very tiny nitrogen molecules. On Pluto they appear to be larger — but still relatively small — soot-like particles we call tholins.”

Read more...

[Aftermath]

Awesome. Our universe, the cosmos, is so beautiful!

[qxcontinuum]

well oxygen can exist everywhere else top.

[fred_mc]

well oxygen can exist everywhere else top.

In tiny amounts it can but the only known thing that can produce big amounts of oxygen is life I think.

Anyway, as it says in the article, the blue colour is not related to oxygen, not even on earth. Here, it is nitrogen, which makes up 78% of earth's atmosphere, which causes the blue colour.

Edited October 9, 2015 by fred_mc

[bee]

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I'm stunned.....and amazed

In tiny amounts it can but the only known thing that can produce big amounts of oxygen is life I think.

what exactly do you mean..?...

fred_mc

Anyway, as it says in the article, the blue colour is not related to oxygen, not even on earth. Here, it is nitrogen, which makes up 78% of earth's atmosphere, which causes the blue colour.

well this is what they say...article in OP

The haze particles themselves are likely gray or red, but the way they scatter blue light has gotten the attention of the New Horizons science team. “That striking blue tint tells us about the size and composition of the haze particles,” said science team researcher Carly Howett, also of SwRI. “A blue sky often results from scattering of sunlight by very small particles. On Earth, those particles are very tiny nitrogen molecules. On Pluto they appear to be larger — but still relatively small — soot-like particles we call tholins.”

Scientists believe the tholin particles form high in the atmosphere, where ultraviolet sunlight breaks apart and ionizes nitrogen and methane molecules and allows them to react with one another to form more and more complex negatively and positively charged ions. When they recombine, they form very complex macromolecules, a process first found to occur in the upper atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan. The more complex molecules continue to combine and grow until they become small particles; volatile gases condense and coat their surfaces with ice frost before they have time to fall through the atmosphere to the surface, where they add to Pluto’s red coloring.

re underlined in the quote - nothing any where near conclusive there..?

then we have..

In a second significant finding, New Horizons has detected numerous small, exposed regions of water ice on Pluto. The discovery was made from data collected by the Ralph spectral composition mapper on New Horizons.

water = hydrogen AND oxygen

this is also very strange...

A curious aspect of the detection is that the areas showing the most obvious water ice spectral signatures correspond to areas that are bright red in recently released color images. “I’m surprised that this water ice is so red,” says Silvia Protopapa, a science team member from the University of Maryland, College Park. “We don’t yet understand the relationship between water ice and the reddish tholin colorants on Pluto's surface.”

red ice.!

could it have anything to do with iron?

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[Astra.]

Awesome. Our universe, the cosmos, is so beautiful!

It certainly is - and I totally appreciate anything that is new - discovered - and learned from NASA in regards to the marvelous and awesome job that they do by sharing their scientific findings with these beautiful and wonderful planets in our cosmos neighborhood.

It's WOW factor.....to know these hazes are blue around Pluto ? that's pretty damn cool.

Cheers and thankyou NASA for the work that you do

[paperdyer]

In the words of Mr. Spock, "Fascinating!" Pluto keeps surprising us.

[Astra.]

In the words of Mr. Spock, "Fascinating!" Pluto keeps surprising us.

Not to familiiar with Mr Spock (never got into it) but yes Pluto and other planets have many surprises ahead of us - I'm sure.