Information about Pluto continues to beam back to Earth from the New Horizons space probe. And scientists are finding the data perplexing, enchanting...and surprising!
Alan Stern is the principal investigator for NASA's historic mission to the dwarf planet, which was discovered in Flagstaff in 1930. He says, "Even people who really knew everything about what we knew, and it expected it to be a complex story, did not expect this level. It's sort of like you expected maybe high school, and you landed in graduate school."
Stern says New Horizons "close-approach" images revealed Arctic-like mountains. Layers of shifting haze surround the 9th classical planet and the temperature is 400 degrees below zero. But, Stern believes there may be a much warmer surprise under Pluto's icy outer surface.
"There is a possibility of an ocean inside Pluto," Stern says, "because we know that there's lots of water-ice, and we know that as you go down deeper and deeper it gets warmer. So some computer models show there's a depth at which ice turns to liquid, and it would be very interesting if Pluto turned out to be an ocean world with its ocean on the inside."
As the space probe travels farther into the Kuiper Belt, Alan Stern hopes to discover even more celestial surprises.
Bonnie Stevens is a reporter based in Flagstaff and Phoenix. Brain Food is produced by KNAU, Arizona Public Radio.
