New discovery about Pluto's atmosphere

Data from the New Horizons spacecraft of the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) show that the surrounding gas layer around the dwarf planet spans about 1,000 miles (more than 1,600 km) outside space, further Very much compared to the Earth's atmosphere.

NASA reveals new discovery about Pluto's atmosphere

Our planet's atmosphere is only 75 miles (120 km), measured from the ground. Thus, the atmosphere of Pluto (Pluto) is 13 times larger than Earth. According to previous observations, scientists estimate Pluto 's atmosphere length is only about 170 miles.

About an hour after flying over the Pluto dwarf planet, New Horizons used its Alice spectral recorder to gather information about the atmosphere. This data can only be obtained in a certain amount of time, when New Horizons flies through the dark areas of Pluto, while the rest of the planet is illuminated by the sun.

Picture simulating the information gathering process of the Pluto booklet of New Horizons.

Thanks to this special condition, new spectrophotometers can measure the wavelength of light from the sun, filtered through Pluto's atmosphere. The change of wavelength has helped researchers find chemical elements that make up the atmosphere of Pluto. Accordingly, at a certain height, the atmosphere will be covered by nitrogen molecules . A bit closer to the surface is the final mixture of methane + nitrogen , close to the ground, which is hydrocarbons.

According to NASA, a significant portion of this gas mixture is still continuing to escape into space, with about 500 tons of material per hour. Fran Bagenal, a member of the NASA research team, said that Pluto's gases in the atmosphere are partially eroded due to the weak gravitational force on the planet.Solar wind is also one of the factors leading to this phenomenon. New Horizons specifically found an ionized ' tail ' behind Pluto, which was the result of gas strikes and attacks on Pluto with the solar wind.

Right now, when New Horizons was more than 2 million miles from the planet, only 1-2% of the data was sent to Earth. It is expected that it will take up to 16 months for all collected information to be returned. At that time, there will be many things that we don't know about Pluto will be revealed.

Video made by NASA shows ice mountains and plains appearing on the surface of Pluto