Posted on 01/26/2007 8:57:45 AM PST by Moseley
Pluto is undergoing global warming, researchers find October 9, 2002
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--Pluto is undergoing global warming, as evidenced by a three-fold increase in the planet's atmospheric pressure during the past 14 years, a team of astronomers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Williams College, the University of Hawaii, Lowell Observatory and Cornell University announced in a press conference today at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Division for Planetary Sciences in Birmingham, AL.
The team, led by James Elliot, professor of planetary astronomy at MIT and director of MIT's Wallace Observatory, made this finding by watching the dimming of a star when Pluto passed in front of it Aug. 20. The team carried out observations using eight telescopes at Mauna Kea Observatory, Haleakala, Lick Observatory, Lowell Observatory and Palomar Observatory. Data were successfully recorded at all sites.
An earlier attempt to observe an occultation of Pluto on July 19 in Chile was not highly successful. Observations were made from only two sites with small telescopes because the giant telescopes and other small telescopes involved lost out to bad weather or from being in the wrong location that day. These two occultations were the first to be successfully observed for Pluto since 1988.
Elliot said the new results have surprised the observers, who as recently as July thought that Pluto's atmosphere may be cooling. "From the July data, we knew that Pluto's atmosphere had changed since 1988, but the August data allowed us to probe much more deeply into Pluto's atmosphere and have given us a more accurate picture of the changes that have occurred," he said.
Jay Pasachoff, an astronomy professor at Williams College, said that Pluto's global warming was "likely not connected with that of the Earth. The major way they could be connected is if the warming was caused by a large increase in sunlight. But the solar constant--the amount of sunlight received each second--is carefully monitored by spacecraft, and we know the sun's output is much too steady to be changing the temperature of Pluto."
Pluto's orbit is much more elliptical than that of the other planets, and its rotational axis is tipped by a large angle relative to its orbit. Both factors could contribute to drastic seasonal changes.
Since 1989, for example, the sun's position in Pluto's sky has changed by more than the corresponding change on the Earth that causes the difference between winter and spring. Pluto's atmospheric temperature varies between around minus 235 and minus 170 degrees Celsius, depending on the altitude above the surface. The main gas in Pluto's atmosphere is nitrogen, and Pluto has nitrogen ice on its surface that can evaporate into the atmosphere when it gets warmer, causing an increase in surface pressure. If the observed increase in the atmosphere also applies to the surface pressure--which is likely the case--this means that the average surface temperature of the nitrogen ice on Pluto has increased slightly less than 2 degrees Celsius over the past 14 years.
Marc Buie, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory, has been measuring the amount of sunlight reflected by Pluto. "The pressure increase can be explained if the average amount of sunlight reflected by the surface has decreased, which means that more heat is absorbed from the sun," he said. "This could be the reason that the pressure has been pumped up."
David Tholen, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii who measured the size of Pluto in the late 1980s using a series of occultations and eclipses involving Pluto's satellite, noted that even though Pluto was closest to the sun in 1989, a warming trend 13 years later shouldn't be unexpected. "It takes time for materials to warm up and cool off, which is why the hottest part of the day on Earth is usually around 2 or 3 p.m. rather than local noon, when sunlight is the most intense," Tholen said. Because Pluto's year is equal to about 250 Earth years, 13 years after Pluto's closest approach to the Sun is like 1:15 p.m. on Earth. "This warming trend on Pluto could easily last for another 13 years," Tholen estimated.
Pluto and Neptune's largest moon, Triton, are presently about the same distance from the sun, and each has a predominantly nitrogen atmosphere (with a surface pressure 100,000 times less than that on Earth), so one might expect similar processes to be occurring on these two bodies.
A 1997 occultation of a star by Triton revealed that its surface had warmed since the Voyager spacecraft first explored it in 1989. On Triton, "Voyager saw dark material rising up as much as 12 km above the surface, indicating some kind of eruptive activity," Elliot said. "There could be more massive activity on Pluto, since the changes observed in Pluto's atmosphere are much more severe. The change observed on Triton was subtle. Pluto's changes are not subtle."
Researchers study faraway objects through occultations--eclipse-like events in which a body (Pluto in this case) passes in front of a star, blocking the star's light from view. By recording the dimming of the starlight over time, astronomers can calculate the density, pressure and temperature of Pluto's atmosphere. Observing two or more occultations at different times provides researchers with information about changes in the planet's atmosphere. The structure and temperature of Pluto's atmosphere was first determined during an occultation in 1988. Pluto's brief pass in front of a different star on July 19 led researchers to believe that a drastic atmospheric change was under way, but it was unclear whether the atmosphere was warming up or cooling down.
The data resulting from this occultation, when Pluto passed in front of a star known as P131.1, led to the current results. "This is the first time that an occultation has allowed us to probe so deeply into Pluto's atmosphere with a large telescope, which gives a high spatial resolution of a few kilometers," Elliot said.
From MIT, in addition to Elliot, researchers involved were physics seniors Katie Carbonari, Erica McEvoy and Alison Klesman; Kelly Clancy, technical assistant in earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences (EAPS); EAPS graduate student Susan Kern, MIT graduate Joyance Meechai (S.B. 2000); David Osip, EAPS research scientist; Michael Person, EAPS graduate student; and aeronatucs and astronautics junior Shen Qu.
NASA is still deciding whether to send a spacecraft to Pluto, the only planet not yet observed at close range. The Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission in the New Horizons Program, if approved, would be launched in 2006 and would reach Pluto 10 years later. This mission will seek to answer questions about the surfaces, atmospheres, interiors and space environments of the solar system's outermost objects, including Pluto and its moon, Charon.
Researchers are looking forward to observing additional Pluto occultations in the years before the Pluto-Kuiper mission flies by Pluto. Of particular interest is the prospect of using SOFIA, a 2.5-meter airborne telescope being built by NASA in collaboration with the German space agency, for Pluto-occultation events when it begins operating in 2004. Edward Dunham, who leads the occultation effort at Lowell Observatory, also is leading a team that is building HIPO, a SOFIA instrument designed specifically to observe occultations. The combination of HIPO and SOFIA will provide very high-quality data on a much more frequent basis than is possible using ground-based telescopes alone.
"This is a very complex process, and we just don't know what is causing these effects" on Pluto's surface, Elliot said. "That's why you need to send a mission."
This work is funded by Research Corporation, the National Science Foundation, and NASA's Planetary Astronomy Program.
Notice how politically-correct environmentalists TRY to explain this away. But the science doesn't lie. Clearly the sun has put out increased solar energy. The effect is there, even if we missed it.
If the sun is causing global warming on Pluto, Mars, and Neptune (Neptune's moon Triton where it was detected), then the sun is causing a far greater effect on Earth -- because Earth is much closer and the sun's effect is much stronger on Earth than on more-distant planets.
This is absolute proof positive that there is NO man-made global warming. Global warming theories predict temperature increases 5 to 10 times greater than what we are actually observing. There is no room for both a warmer sun and man-made effects in the comparatively TINY changes we are actually seeing, far less than the theories predict.
This looks like it comes from 2002
"three-fold increase in the planet's atmospheric pressure"
Pluto is no longer a planet.
I wish I were the Oscar presenter. When Glore comes on the stage I would congratulatd him and as he steps close I would bounce that statue offn his shoulder pimple that is impersonating as a head/brain pan!
How can it not be man-made? Global warming only exists because of evil white Republican capitalists.
I bet its caused by all of the pollution from our SUVs drifting through space and accumulating in Pluto's atmosphere.
Quick, someone call Algore... he needs to make a documentary on space pollution and the "Solar System Warming" epidemic.
All the studies show its too late for us... but, by God, we can still save Pluto!
Solar System Warming!
| Daily Policy Digest: MARS IS WARMING |
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| Posted by Moseley On News/Activism 01/25/2007 3:11:17 PM CST · 93 replies · 1,278+ views National Center for Policy Analysis ^ | January 10, 2006 | National Center for Policy Analysis The planet Mars is undergoing significant global warming which supports many climatologists' claims that the Earth's modest warming during the past century is due to a recent upsurge in solar energy, says James M. Taylor, of the Heartland Institute. For three Mars summers, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near the planet's south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress, says Taylor. Furthermore, documented changes from 1999 to 2005 show that Mars' climate is presently warmer, and perhaps getting warmer still, than it was several decades or centuries ago. But there are not a... |
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| The Mars Global Surveyor [Global Warming on Mars Also] |
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| Posted by Moseley On News/Activism 01/25/2007 2:56:45 PM CST · 22 replies · 386+ views ASTROPROF (quoting NASA) ^ | November 22, 2006 | AstroProf [SNIP] Among the findings attributed to MGS [the Mars Global Surveyor], are -- [snip] Data show that the south polar ice cap seems to be shrinking each year, leading some planetary scientists to suggest THAT MARS IS UNDERGOING GLOBAL WARMING, MUCH AS MANY BELIEVE THAT EARTH may be experiencing. If so, this is a very interesting finding, because Mars does not have any artificial pollution to contribute to global warming. [Emphasis added] |
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Did youse all read the article?
"we know the sun's output is much too steady to be changing the temperature of Pluto."
They attribute the warming mostly to Pluto's orbit.
No. It's not.
The Sun can't be causing it. It has to be the SUV's that the Plutoians are driving!!!! /sarcasm
It's not warming, it's just hot under the collar because it's been dissed.
Mars is warming.
Pluto is warming.
Earth is warming.
Darned martians should stop driving SUVs.
Wow! Looks like the Moonbats will have a new epithet: "George Bush, destroyer of planets and solar systems!"
So here it is, barely a year after we launch a probe to enter Pluto, and now, in anticipation, Pluto is getting hot and bothered, yet we claim it's NOT man-made. I beg to differ....
When you're as cold as Pluto, ANYTHING is considered warming.........
It's all Bush's fault!!
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