NASA boffins on Pluto: We see skies of BLUE and... RED water ice Pluto's skies are a lovely blue, NASA says, after releasing new data and colour-corrected images from the New Horizons mission's swing-past the former planet. The probe detected what NASA's calling a “high altitude haze” of particles that come about as a result of “sunlight-initiated chemical reactions of nitrogen and methane …
Gah, I can't group the lines together properly. El'Reg, I need instruction on how to group lines more closely together as the spacing is being whacked out by whatever automatic thing you've got running.
----
We see skies of blue and red water ice.</br>Boffins all say, "That's very nice."</br>And I think to myself, "That's a dangerous world."
I see storms of dust and so little light,</br>Below freezing days, damn deadly nights.</br>And I think to myself what a dangerous world.
Deimos and Phobos so pretty in the sky,</br>That sad old Beagle rover, it was a brave old try.</br>Curiosity sang, "Happy birthday to you."</br>But as Rovers go, it's lonely too.
Maybe seeds will be sent, up there to grow.</br>Will they succeed? I'll never know.</br>And I think to myself what a dangerous world.</br>Yes, I think to myself what a dangerous world.
Perhaps.... with methane and nitrogen around, a thin atmosphere and aeons of time there has been some catalytic reduction of the methane under the influence of some local Aluminium or Gallium based catalyst (we know of GaN and AlCl3) through to ethylene or toluene and through to benzene. The released hydrogen with nitrogen gets you some ammonia and its not far from there to some aniline-based dyes..... what colour would you like? Clearly the social-democrats got there first! Yea!
This post has been deleted by its author
Mars has red skies but blue sunsets, the opposite of what we experience here on Earth. Apparently it is because our atmosphere has lots of air and not much dust, whereas Mars has lots of dust and not much air. Or something. Read about it here: http://www.universetoday.com/120353/what-makes-mars-sunsets-different-from-earths/
"I would have thought all skies would be blue if they were any colour at all? Isn't it just that the light refracts as it changes medium and that blue light scatters more? Regardless of atmosphere contents?"
The sky of Venus is orange.
Take a look at the Venera 11
http://mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm
So obviously Pluto has an atmosphere we didn't realise was there. And of course, it's actually really thick, but due to lack of Human habitation, the skies are so clear that the planet is easily visible.
It's so thick that it's able to maintain the substantial heat generated from the planet's core, which, in turn, powers the abundant life, just under the surface.
Plutonians will be considering what the thing was in the sky earlier their week. But, because they are peaceful beings, with none of the 'attributes' of us Humans, they won't really care and will carry on bathing in their vast seas of crude oil.
But, because they are peaceful beings, with none of the 'attributes' of us Humans, they won't really care and will carry on bathing in their vast seas of crude oil.
Peaceful? Aye, if you don't count their habit of decanting people's brains into metal cylinders for purposes yet unknown.
Beware the Fungi from Yuggoth.
Funny though it may seem, the illumination is like an early evening on Earth. The images were taken mostly with 150ms exposure time (some with 100ms); a bit too long for hand-held work with a telelens, but short enough so they could take a large number of pics during the overflight.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
