Photos acquired from a fly-by back in July 2015 have brought fascination about the dwarf planet. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft may be onto something when some cloud features have been unveiled during a close investigation on Pluto.
According to Alan Stern, principal investigator at Colorado's Southwest Research Institute, the view that the small celestial body's atmosphere is cloud-free may have to change. It has long been known that Pluto's layered outer sphere is complicated.
However, cameras from the New Horizons mission have shown otherwise. Acquired pictures present foggy angles which mean that cloud presence is a big possibility.
It has been cited that the potential clouds, which have kilometer-length scales, are floating low individually. None of these fluffy bodies are flying collectively.
Models of Pluto's atmosphere indicate that the clouds are likely comprised of substances affiliated with acetylene, ethane and hydrogen cyanide.
Stern adds that if the observations are true, the weather on Pluto is far more convoluted that previously investigated.
However, to confirm if those features are indeed clouds, new instruments will be needed to explore the planet. Setting a Pluto orbiter in place will be more helpful and appropriate.
Based on telescope images, the brightness on the dwarf planet's icy surface is rather multifarious. Information from the 2015 flight have unraveled that the most glowing locations on Pluto, which include its huge heart-shaped region, are also among the most reflective in the galaxy.
Bonnie Buratti, a Science team co-investigator from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, states that this brightness signifies movements on the surface.
However, the only missing activity on Pluto is associated with landslides which, astoundingly, occur on Charon, the planet's largest moon.
Presently, the New Horizons space vessel is 5.5 billion kilometers away from Earth and 540 million kilometers beyond Pluto. It is travelling at a rate of 14 kilometers per second away from the sun.
