Posted on 01/30/2016 6:05:47 PM PST by BenLurkin
Pluto has way more frozen water than scientists originally thought.
The dwarf planet is coated with a large amount of ice, according to a new map using previously collected data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.
This map is more sensitive than an earlier version that was created using data by New Horizons' historic fly by in 2015. The previous map was at a disadvantage because water ice can be easily masked by frozen methane. So it only showed areas with an especially large amount of frozen water.
A new method, which involved NASA stitching together two infrared images captured by New Horizons' Ralph/Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) instrument, at a distance of about 67,000 miles, allowed scientists to mute ice signatures created by other elements, such as methane and nitrogen, and heighten the signature for water ice. What they discovered was a lot of frozen water blanketing little Pluto's surface.
...
According to the new map of Pluto, there's little evidence of ice water in the Sputnik Planum, which lies in the western region of Pluto's "heart," and Lowell Regio, NASA officials said in a statement on Thursday. "This indicates that at least in these regions, Pluto's icy bedrock is well hidden beneath a thick blanket of other ices such as methane, nitrogen and carbon monoxide," according to the statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
asteroids must have refroze
I didn’t do it.
I thought Pluto didn’t matter any more.
Don’t blame Bush!
Bush’s fault.
So... if we run out of clean water, we could mine it! (/s)
Could move there. Would never need sunglasses again.
Water is likely to be very valuable out in those areas, as we expand into the Solar system.
Frozen methane....
How many dinosaurs or ancient forests died there to cause hydrocarbons?
Oh wait, they aren’t FOSSIL FUELS?
Absolutely! You could even say put there by God for our use when we’re ready to get there...
Hydrogen to burn, oxygen to breath, and together water to drink once melted back to liquid.
Brian Williams put that water there.
This is just Goofy.
The liberals claim we are running out of water...can we send them to Pluto??
We need to send the NASA administrative staff out there to personally verify the frozen water ....
And Uranus is infested with Klingons.
That still makes me LOL
No surprise here. That snowstorm back east last week was a monster!
Life imitating art, think The Expanse.
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