Through a long series of processes from 2016 to 2019 by observing hundreds of photos taken from New Horizon, finally revealed a number of new facts about Pluto. From the series of images processed, on the dark side of the dwarf planet revealed details of Pluto’s nitrogen atmosphere.
It was Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, trying to process the images when he got the data in 2016. At the time, the data from New Horizons was fresh and occupied most of his attention, so he didn’t have time to tackle such a complex project. .
He tried again in 2019. Because the spacecraft moved while taking pictures, each image was slightly smudged or blurred. Lauer wrote computer code to remove the blur from each frame of the image. (Read also; Pluto’s Atmosphere Slowly Disappears, Astronomers See Snowy Mountains )
Then he added the light of Charon, Pluto’s moon, which was reflected in each of the hundreds of images together to produce a single image. Now, mission scientists have finally released a rough view of the dwarf planet’s dark side.
“While Tod was doing that painstaking analysis, we finally saw something appearing in the dark there. Gives us a little idea of what Pluto’s dark poles look like,” said John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. (Read also; The Curiosity rover discovers a new organic molecule on Mars )
The image, however, could help scientists understand how Pluto’s cold nitrogen atmosphere varies with its decades-long seasons. Pluto’s atmosphere is controlled by the amount of nitrogen in the gaseous phase in the air and how much freezes on the surface.
Planetary scientist Carly Howett of the Southwest Research Institute who was on the New Horizons team explained that the more nitrogen ice that evaporates, the thicker the atmosphere. If too much nitrogen freezes to the ground, the atmosphere can collapse completely.
When New Horizons is there, Pluto’s south pole appears darker than its north pole. That suggests not much fresh nitrogen frost froze from the atmosphere there, even though it was nearing winter.
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