A new examination of photographs of Pluto from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the dwarf planet changing colors and at one point getting redder in what may indicate distinct changes of seasons, National Geographic News says.
The photographs, taken from 2002 to 2003, were compiled in a four-year project that involved 20 computers running simultaneously, lead investigator Marc Buie, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., tells reporters.
Buie says the melding of 384 Hubble pictures of Pluto created ""my best guess at a true-color appearance" of the dwarf planet.
"If you were sitting in a spacecraft puttering around Pluto and looking out the window, this is what you'd see, but in higher resolution," he says.
Astronomers noted that the Southern Hemisphere became significantly darker and redder from 2000 to 2002, while the Northern Hemisphere got brighter, NGN says.
This likely is because of ice melting and refreezing during the change of seasons, astronomer Mike Brown, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said at the briefing.
Pluto, which was downgraded from full planet status to dwarf planet four years ago, orbits the sun every 248 years, AFP notes.
The latest pictures should offer astronomers ideas on what to focus on when the New Horizons spacecraft reaches Pluto in 2015, NGN says.
(Posted by Doug Stanglin)
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