The mission of New Horizons must complete its work in mid-2020.
Station New Horizons was able to observe the passage of ultraviolet radiation from two stars through the atmosphere of Pluto. It is reported by NASA.
With the passage of the radiation through the gas shell of the dwarf planet it faded. This, together with data on the passage through the atmosphere of Pluto solar light has allowed scientists to clarify its structure and composition. It turned out that the upper layers of the atmosphere contain mainly nitrogen and methane and 25 percent colder (and smaller) than the underlying. The rate of loss of nitrogen gas shell of the dwarf planet was a thousand times smaller than was previously thought.
The passage of radiation through the atmosphere of the dwarf planet managed to fix with the help of the spectrometer of Alice New Horizons. It happened four hours after closest approach of the apparatus with the dwarf planet when he was at a distance of 320 thousand miles away from her.
Previously, the New Horizons mission came to the conclusion that one of the irregular moons of Pluto (the Hydra, in which the diameter reaches 50 kilometers) consists almost entirely of water ice. To such conclusion scientists have come, having analysed spectra from it, of Pluto and Charon (largest moon of the dwarf planet). The reason for this scientists see that Hydra was formed as a result of the collision of two icy bodies.
The scientists also showed that the solar wind interacts with Pluto not as the comet, and as a typical planet. In the same way as the Earth, the dwarf planet has a long ion tail, reaching a length of 118.7 thousand kilometers and containing heavy ions from its atmosphere.
Station New Horizons July 14, 2015, at about 14 kilometers per second close to Pluto on the minimum distance of 12.5 thousand kilometers. At this time the peak of the research work. The mission of New Horizons must complete its work in mid-2020. the Main objective of the New Horizons program is to study the dwarf planet Pluto and its satellite Charon. Scientific equipment installed at the plant, we collected data on the atmospheric composition and structure of Pluto’s surface and its interaction with Charon.
