Friday, February 5, 2010

Pluto Changing Colour?


The Hubble Space Telescope has taken pictures of Pluto changing colour from its original blue-ish colour to a reddish, "molasses-colour". This change in colour shows that Pluto is not just a ball of ice and rock, but a "dynamic world undergoing dramatic atmospheric changes". This new colouring is apparently due to the melting of the ice in the sunlit pole and the re-freezing of that ice in the other pole. Scientists are comparing pictures of Pluto from 1994 with some from 2002 and 2003 to search for seasonal changes. Pluto has seasons, but they're based solely on the Pluto's 248-year-old orbit around the sun unlike Earth's seasons. NASA is hoping to get more pictures of Pluto when it sends out its next space probe (New Horizons) that will fly past Pluto.

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