November 17, 2017

Pluto and its atmosphere (Image NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

An article published in the journal “Nature” describes a research on the haze present in the atmosphere of the dwarf planet Pluto’s and its effects on its temperatures. According to a team led by Xi Zhang of the University of California at Santa Cruz, the haze absorb the already low heat from sunlight and emits infrared radiation cooling the atmosphere. That’s the explanation for the fact that NASA’s New Horizons space probe measured a temperature even lower than expected.