My good friend Dr Mike, my go to Scientist, has recently written a book on the new Pluto data - and to get you thoroughly interested, here is a selection of strange Pluto factoids for you to be puzzled by! Link to his book here.
Worlds of Weird
Life on Pluto? Not something that has hit the headlines, but
the recent discovery of ice volcanoes, which implies an underground ocean of
some kind, makes it as plausible there as on (or in) Jupiter's moon Europa, or
Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Though anything alive is unlikely ever to venture onto
Pluto's surface, the possibility of Plutonians did make me think : given how
strange Pluto seems to us, what would Earth seem like to a Plutonian? So here
are the top ten weird Earth experiences for a visitor from Pluto :
1. Hot. The coldest midwinter midnight in Antarctica is far
hotter than the noonday heat of Plutonian midsummer. And on Pluto, how hot you
are depends on what you're standing on : the air is too thin, and the Sun too
dim, to affect you. On Earth, ground temperature makes hardly a difference.
2. Bright. Midsummer noon on Pluto is like early twilight on
Earth, and the idea that Earth creatures can't even look directly at the Sun
must be baffling.
3. Windy. Any kind of wind on Pluto is both weak and rare.
Like Earth, Pluto has prevailing winds, but these are very feeble indeed - and
they blow upwards, as the summer Sun evaporates the ice fields.
4. Fast. On Earth, life is speedy. Days rush by six times
faster, chemical reactions happen in a flash, and objects hit the ground almost
as soon as they are dropped : drop a cup on Pluto, and it takes about two
seconds to fall.
5. Moon. Earth's moon isn't just tiny (less than a fifth the
size of Charon, Pluto's main moon), it moves slowly across the heavens. Charon
remains perpetually fixed in place in the sky.
6. Sky. Earth's daytime sky looks pretty much the same in
all directions, and the fact that the stars can't be seen through it - despite
the fact that it is transparent - would be very hard for a Plutonian to
understand. On Pluto, the sky is forever black and star-studded when you look
upwards, and blue above the horizon.
7. Water. Trying to explain to a Plutonian what a liquid is
would be almost impossible. How can something that spreads sideways endlessly
not spread upwards and thin out to nothing? What does "flow" even
mean? How can you put your hand into an object (like a puddle)? When you take
your hand out again, why is there no hole?
8. Metals. Almost as weird as water. There are no metals on
Pluto, while on Earth they are all over the place. Without them, there are no
magnets and electricity can't flow either. Not can radio waves be produced. All
these things would be alien to a Plutonian.
9. Green. Absolutely nothing on Pluto is green; red, yellow
and grey is the palette that paints the land, while the horizon is a ring of
blue. Yet on many parts of Earth, this unknown colour is to be seen all around.
10. Seasons. Unless a Plutonian stayed on Earth's equator,
(s)he would experience seasonal changes within a few weeks of arrival, over two
hundred times faster than the seasons change on Pluto.
Take any other pair of worlds, and one can play the same
game of weird. Until late last century, the only worlds we had to explore were
the nine planets and their moons. Now we know that Pluto is just one of many
other cold worlds beyond Neptune. Maybe they are stranger still.
Mike Goldsmith
(more Pluto news, blogs and pix at http://newhorizonspluto.weebly.com/)
***
This is Part 1 of 2 - next week hopefully, there will be more Pluto information!! :-)
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