New Hubble images of Pluto have revealed that the surface of the dwarf planet changed between 2000 and 2002. Pluto has become significantly redder, and the northern hemisphere – currently illuminated by the Sun – is getting brighter. Ices are believed to be sublimating on the sunlit pole at the moment, and then refreezing on the South Pole as Pluto heads into the next phase of its 248-year seasonal cycle. This is causing the dramatic change in surface features seen by the team from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Pluto is so small and distant that the task of resolving the surface is as challenging as trying to see the markings on a soccer ball 40 miles away.
Plans are now being made to use Hubble’s new Wide Field Camera 3 to make further Pluto observations prior to the arrival of New Horizons in 2015. Advanced Hubble images will help the New Horizons team to take better shots of the dwarf planet when the probe arrives, and to make the most efficient use of time as it explores the Pluto-Charon system.
The new images have also been combined into a great video showing the current surface of Pluto rotating. You can find a small (iPhone-friendly) version right here or you can grab the HD one from the NASA site by clicking here. Read the full NASA press release here.
Thanks to Mike Brown (@plutokiller) for pointing this out via Twitter.
Actually, it was NASA that initially pointed this out. These photos show that Pluto is “a dynamic world” with geology and weather, not just a ball of ice and rock, characteristics that mean Pluto has a lot in common with the other, larger planets.
Yes it was NASA. This post appeared because of the NASA press release I link to at the bottom. There many moons that are also ‘dynamic’. I dare say there will be comets and possibly asteroids too. Pluto’s status in the heirarchy of the Solar System has no impact on how interesting it is, or what kind if world we will discover through New Horizon’s eyes.
Many of the larger spherical moons in the solar system also have a lot in common with the large planets. That’s why I support designating them as secondary planets. As for comets and asteroids, I don’t know that they would have the same dynamic activity without being in hydrostatic equilibrium or geologically differentiated. Ceres is likely more planet-like, and possibly Vesta and Pallas also, which appear to have been spherical only to have had a portion taken off in an impact. It may be far too premature to establish a definitive “hierarchy” in the solar system.
Looks like a man’s face is in there… oh! Wow! Amazing!