New Horizons discovers haze, flowing ice on Pluto

U.S. space agency NASA on Friday released the newest discoveries from New Horizons mission, which reveal distant Pluto as an icy world of wonders.

New images returned from New Horizons spacecraft are unveiling the newest discoveries, including a surprising extended haze and flowing ice.

"With flowing ices, exotic surface chemistry, mountain ranges, and vast haze, Pluto is showing a diversity of planetary geology that is truly thrilling," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.

According to NASA, just seven hours after Pluto flyby at the closest approach, New Horizons aimed its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) back at the dwarf planet, capturing sunlight streaming through the atmosphere and revealing hazes as high as 130 km above Pluto's surface.

A preliminary analysis of the image shows two distinct layers of haze, one about 80 km above the surface and the other at an altitude of about 50 km.

Scientists previously had calculated temperatures would be too warm for hazes to form at altitudes higher than 30 km above Pluto's surface.

"The hazes detected in this image are a key element in creating the complex hydrocarbon compounds that give Pluto's surface its reddish hue," New Horizons co-investigator Michael Summers said in a statement.

Scientists also found evidence of exotic ices flowing across Pluto's surface in close-up images and revealing signs of recent geologic activity, something they hoped to find but didn't expect.

The new close-up images show fascinating details within the plain, informally named Sputnik Planum, that lies within the western half of Pluto's heart-shaped region, known as Tombaugh Regio. There, a sheet of ice clearly appears to have flowed, and may still be flowing, in a manner similar to glaciers on Earth.

Temperatures on Pluto are minus 229 degrees Celsius, and so water ice would not move anywhere in such extreme cold. But scientists said the nitrogen and other ices believed to be on Pluto would be geologically soft and therefore able to flow like glaciers on Earth.

"We've only seen surfaces like this on active worlds like Earth and Mars," said mission co-investigator John Spencer. "I'm really smiling."

NASA is expecting more data after August. "We knew that a mission to Pluto would bring some surprises, and now -- 10 days after closest approach -- we can say that our expectation has been more than surpassed," Grunsfeld said. Endi