In 2015, the New Horizons space probe discovered spectacular snow-covered mountains on Pluto that are strikingly similar to the mountains on Earth. Such a landscape had never before been observed anywhere else in the solar system. However, there is one major difference: On Earth, atmospheric temperatures decrease with altitude. On Pluto, however, they increase with altitude due to the sun’s radiation. So where does this ice come from?
An international team of researchers has now investigated this. The scientists first discovered that the “snow” on the mountains of Pluto is actually frozen methane, with traces of this gas in the atmosphere of Pluto, just like water vapor on Earth. Then, to understand how the same landscape could be formed under such different conditions, they used a climate model for the dwarf planet, which showed that the atmosphere of Pluto is rich in gaseous methane due to its particular dynamics at high altitudes.
As a result, only on the peaks of mountains high enough to reach this enriched zone does the air contain enough methane to condense snow from it. At lower altitudes, the air is too poor in methane to allow ice to form. This research, published in Nature Communications, may also explain why the thick methane glaciers observed elsewhere on Pluto have spectacular rugged ridges, as opposed to the shallow water glaciers of the Earth.
Brandon Q. Morris è un fisico e uno specialista dello spazio. Si è occupato a lungo di questioni spaziali, sia professionalmente che privatamente, e mentre voleva diventare un astronauta, è dovuto rimanere sulla Terra per una serie di motivi. È particolarmente affascinato dal "what if" e attraverso i suoi libri mira a condividere storie avvincenti di hard science fiction che potrebbero realmente accadere, e un giorno potrebbero accadere. Morris è l'autore di diversi romanzi di fantascienza best-seller, tra cui The Enceladus Series.
Brandon è un orgoglioso membro della Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America e della Mars Society.
Thanks tor this blog article… Very interesting!