{"id":19441,"date":"2016-03-05T00:51:53","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T16:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/clouds-on-pluto-pictures-from-nasas-new-horizons-probe-spark-discussion\/"},"modified":"2016-03-05T00:51:53","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T16:51:53","slug":"clouds-on-pluto-pictures-from-nasas-new-horizons-probe-spark-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/clouds-on-pluto-pictures-from-nasas-new-horizons-probe-spark-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"Clouds on Pluto? Pictures from NASA\u2019s New Horizons probe spark discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Potential
An image captured by NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft last July 14 shows the edge of Pluto and its atmospheric haze, including what appears to be a light wispy cloud toward the right side of the image. (Credit: NASA \/ JHUAPL \/ SwRI via New Scientist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even before NASA\u2019s New Horizons probe flew past Pluto, scientists thought they might see clouds in its thin atmosphere \u2013 and now a couple of pictures suggest they were spotted.<\/p>\n

One of the pictures from last July\u2019s flyby, published by New Scientist today, shows what appears to be a light-colored wisp amid the dwarf planet\u2019s haze.<\/p>\n

Michael Buckley, a spokesman for Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, told GeekWire that the science team is still discussing the data.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the team can say at this point is Pluto\u2019s atmosphere, including hazes, is complex, and scientists continue to analyze and discuss incoming data as part of the normal science process,\u201d Buckley said in an email. \u201cAs always, we\u2019ll post a feature just as soon as we have more analysis and consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Image:
The red circle highlights wispy features in an image of Pluto captured by NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015. (Credit: NASA \/ JHUAPL \/ SwRI)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New Scientist quoted from what it said were emails that were distributed among team members in a mission discussion group. It said one of the emails was sent last September, and pointed to wispy streaks in an image that also showed discontinuities in the layers of haze in Pluto\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The subject of clouds reportedly came up again this week in the discussion group, New Scientist said.<\/p>\n

For months, New Horizons\u2019 scientists have been studying the haze in Pluto\u2019s atmosphere, which contains nitrogen, methane, carbon monoxide and organic particulates. Before last year\u2019s flyby, scientists theorized that Pluto\u2019s clouds might contain \u201cbaby snowflakes\u201d made of those constituents.<\/p>\n

This week, the New Horizons team laid out additional evidence for the presence of methane frost on Pluto\u2019s mountaintops. Such frost could arguably condense out of Plutonian clouds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An image captured by NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft last July 14 shows the edge of Pluto and its atmospheric haze, including what appears to be a light wispy cloud toward the right side of the image. (Credit: NASA \/ JHUAPL \/ SwRI via New Scientist) Even before NASA\u2019s New Horizons probe flew past Pluto, scientists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4809,2174,2848,4004],"class_list":["post-19441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nasa-new-horizons","tag-new-horizons","tag-pluto","tag-pluto-flyby"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}