| Meteors, Asteroids and Comets |
|
Pluto Cutaway. The large tilt in Pluto's rotational axis (120 degrees) creates very large seasonal variations. As surface ices melt in the migrating sunlight, their gases are transported and redeposited in dark, cold surface regions as frost. At the same time, in other locations on the planet or as Pluto's seasons change, some of the gases of the atmosphere freeze on the surface, causing a slow but continuous exchange of materials between the surface and the atmosphere. This constantly refreshes the surface, perhaps covering much of the planet's topography with freshly deposited ices on time scales of thousands of years.
Credit: NASA/JHU/APL. |
01/14/09
|
|
| |
Viewed: 1004 times
|
|
|
|
|
