Scientists are starting to get a clearer picture of how Pluto’s strange, hazy atmosphere works. Their latest discovery, concerning waves rippling through the dwarf planet’s atmosphere, means that Pluto shares some unexpected similarities with Earth.
We have known about Pluto’s beautiful layers of atmospheric haze since New Horizons took a look at the back-lit dwarf planet just after its flyby in July.
As New Horizons flew past Pluto, it captured images of the haze layers as illuminated by the sun. The layers appear to be consistent in their structure — with the height of the layers remaining the same no matter when they’re observed — but the brightness of the layers varies “depending on illumination and viewpoint,” NASA said. Read more…
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