What Are Those Dark Spots All About?
Time late for a current events type post, but this article discusses some key questions scientists were asking – and I assume hoping to find out once New Horizons took as much data as it could during the July 14, 2015 closest approach fly-by.
We are starting to see a few photos now, and we’ll post them as they we can get them … but it may be some time before we know anything concrete about the dark spots.
Theories we’ve read so far postulate that hydro-thermal vents under a sea of water, deep below a frozen ice surface are responsible, but time will hopefully tell if that is correct.
Read through the below article to find out more and share
The science team on the American New Horizons mission to Pluto has released two colour views of the dwarf planet and its biggest moon, Charon.
They were made by combining pictures from the probe’s high-resolution, “black and white” camera, Lorri, and its lower-resolution, colour imager known as Ralph.
The difference in hue between Pluto and Charon is clear.
But what catches the eye are four dark spots on the 2,300km-wide dwarf planet.
Each spot is about 500km across. Quite why they should be so similar in size and spacing is not clear.
Their dominant placing is on the hemisphere that New Horizons will not see during its close flyby on 14 July.
However, there should be ample opportunity to study them in the days leading up to the encounter.
“It’s a real puzzle – we don’t know what the spots are, and we can’t wait to find out,” said New Horizons principal investigator, Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute.
“Also puzzling is the longstanding and dramatic difference in the colours and appearance of Pluto compared to its darker and greyer moon Charon.”
If, as scientists think, Pluto and Charon are the products of a collision between two primitive bodies in the early Solar System, one might expect them to look more similar.
New Horizon’s flyby data will hopefully provide the answer.
….. Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos