The New Horizons probe is transmitted to Earth the next portion of data about the life of Pluto. After examining the pictures, astrology NASA found indicators of the movement of glaciers on the dwarf planet. To this day it was believed that this is only possible on Earth and Mars.
"To this day we saw similar only on the surface geologically active planets like Earth and Mars", says John Spencer of the southwest research University in San Antonio (United States).
Researchers amounted images from New Horizons colour "portrait" of Pluto, which shows the distribution of ice on the dwarf planet. The darkest ice-free areas are on the equator, and the light looks the North pole covered in ice.
Besides all this, the area in the shape of a heart, visible in the pictures of the dwarf planet, although located closer to the equator, covered with ice from frozen nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. When the temperature is -234 degrees Celsius on Pluto these frozen gases behave similarly to the glaciers on Earth. Traces of the movement data of the glaciers found in the Western part of the bright region in the shape of a heart, and in its southern part it is seen as the glacier creeps on the ice-free dark area, dotted with craters, TASS informs .
New Horizons was launched to Pluto in 2006. 9 years and 4.6 billion miles of loneliness in space, to see the dwarf planet at a glance. This is the task of the American space probe New Horizons, which is July 14, 2015 held at a record close distance from Pluto - just 12.5 thousand km. Photos station began sending to Earth yet on the approach to the Pluto system. The population of the earth first received detailed images of the planet and its plural formation.
After convergence with Pluto, New Horizons will continue its way deep into the Kuiper belt. There are thousands of frozen objects, which can suggest answers to questions about how the Solar system was formed.
sections: Society, World News |
Russian News
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