Hubble Telescope detects seasonal changes in the surface of Pluto
Although Pluto is no longer considered a planet, it is still an object of interest to scientists. The latest images taken by the Hubble Telescope have given us some new insights into this dwarf planet.
According to the BBC, new images of Pluto show us that the surface undergoes tremendous changes during its seasons. When compared to images taken in 1994 to the most recent batch, the Northern polar region was dramatically brighter, suggesting that the surface is extremely dynamic.
Mike Brown, from the California Institute of Technology, said, “If you look around the entire Solar System, the only things that change their surfaces by any noticeable amount are the Earth, where ice caps come and go. There is Mars, where ice caps come and go. That’s it.” He went on to add, “[With Pluto] you are looking at the surface in the Solar System that has the biggest changes of anything we’ve ever seen.”
Pluto inhabits a region of our solar system known as the Kuiper Belt; a region of icy objects at the outer most part of our system. These new images are the best we will see until 2015 when the New Horizons probe reaches the dwarf planet.
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