MEXICO: The New Horizons spacecraft is the gift that keeps on giving: the probe recently transmitted more photos to Earth from its Pluto flyby, and with it, confirmation of frozen water on the planet’s surface and pictures that depict the presence of Pluto’s atmospheric particle-induced “blue skies.”
The dwarf planet’s blue skies, or “blue hazes,” are actually “haze particles”; depending on their particular formation; according to NASA’s official statement on the findings, they’re specifically “soot-like particles we call tholins” (on Earth, the equivalent to Pluto’s tholins are nitrogen particles), and despite their dissemination of blue light, the particles themselves are most likely red or gray in color.
New Horizons also managed to snap some photos of water ice on Pluto’s surface; scientists were able to identify the water ice as such using data collected by the spacecraft’s Ralph spectral composition mapper.
While it has been known for some time that ice exists on the minor planet (albeit mostly nitrogen ice, with instances of methane and carbon monoxide ice), there was no prior confirmation that frozen H20 could be found on Pluto. Also, to add a bit of an interesting twist, the ice water on Pluto isn’t blue or clear — it’s red.
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