Scientists Make Interesting Discoveries About Pluto

It has been a year since NASA's New Horizons flew past Pluto and sent back stunning images and pioneering data, however due to its mind boggling distance from Earth, the information is reaching us at a slow rate. Therefore, new discoveries about the icy dwarf planet are reportedly being made on a slow pace, and scientists are figuring out something new about Pluto every other day.

Earlier this month, scientists found that Pluto behaves more like a planet than a comet, concluded on the basis of its interaction with the solar wind. A piece of information like this is a huge find, considering that Pluto was pushed off from its former status of being the ninth planet in the solar system.

Furthermore, the team members working on New Horizons had released a statement on May 17, stating that the spacecraft had studied the first occulations of the icy dwarf planet's atmosphere by ultraviolet rays. The observation confirmed numerous significant discoveries about Pluto's atmosphere and show that its upper atmosphere is 25 percent colder than what scientists had previously estimated.

In addition, researchers also detected a vast terrain on Pluto which they have termed as fretted, meaning the area has bright plains which are segmented into polygon shaped blocks divided by several miles of connected valleys. The terrain phenomenon is something that scientists have not observed anywhere else in the solar system, except a certain area on Mars.

"New Horizons scientists haven't seen this type of terrain anywhere else on Pluto; in fact, it's rare terrain across the solar system - the only other well-known example of such being Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars," read a NASA. "The distinct interconnected valley network was likely formed by extensional fracturing of Pluto's surface. The valleys separating the blocks may then have been widened by movement of nitrogen ice glaciers, or flowing liquids, or possibly by ice sublimation at the block margins." Currently, scientists are keeping a watch for more possible detections and discoveries that could be analyzed for Pluto.