- Astronomers have detected new features in Pluto's high-altitude haze, revealing surprises.
- Pluto's haze is multi-layered and extends over 300 kilometers above its surface.
- The haze plays a significant role in controlling Pluto's climate and atmospheric balance.
Pluto, long reclassified as a dwarf planet, continues to surprise scientists. Astronomers recently detected new features in its high-altitude haze - revealing more than previously known.
Once thought to be a frozen, featureless world, Pluto was found to have icy plains and rugged mountains when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past it in 2015.
Now, researchers have studied a bluish and multi-layered haze around Pluto, which stretched more than 300 kilometres above the surface.
The astronomers noted that the haze is not just a visual oddity, but something that controls the dwarf planet's climate.
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In the study titled, Evidence of haze control of Pluto's atmospheric heat balance from JWST/MIRI thermal light curves, astronomers revealed that they detected and measured the thermal emission of Pluto's haze.
They said that the "observed fluxes indicate that Pluto's haze is composed of Titan-like organic particles as well as hydrocarbon and nitrile ices and demonstrate that the haze largely controls Pluto's atmospheric balance".
Pluto's temperatures, climate and general circulation should therefore be substantially affected by the haze across seasons, the study said.
"This is unique in the solar system. It's a new kind of climate, let's say," Tanguy Bertrand, who is an astronomer at the Paris Observatory in France, who led the analysis, told Live Science.
The findings were published on June 2 in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Mysteries of Pluto
Pluto's reclassification as a dwarf planet in 2006 sparked debate. Pluto's surface composition, including nitrogen ice and tholins, is still not fully understood.
Pluto has a thin atmosphere which freezes and thaws as it orbits the Sun. Pluto's five known moons, including Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx, pose questions about formation and evolution.
