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This equatorial dark band region coincides with the permanent diurnal climate zone on Pluto. The high-albedo terrain of the diurnal zone remains warm enough that it cannot be a cold trap for volatile. The absence of any interval of arctic winter darkness also precludes the possibilities of volatile cold trapping in the high-albedo diurnal zone.
Pluto's origin and identity had long puzzled astronomers. One early hypothesis was that Pluto was an escaped moon of Neptune [161] knocked out of orbit by Neptune's largest moon, Triton. This idea was eventually rejected after dynamical studies showed it to be impossible because Pluto never approaches Neptune in its orbit. [162]
Neptune's orbit is also nearly circular, with a low eccentricity of 0.0097; [15] as such, each season on Triton lasts roughly 40 years, and Triton's seasonal variations are almost entirely governed by the tilt of its rotational axis relative to the Sun. [16] [a] Triton is tidally locked, with one hemisphere facing Neptune at all times; Triton's ...
It's not just the air on Pluto that is cold -- the volcanoes on the dwarf plant are frigid, too. According to a group of scientists on NASA's New Horizons mission team, which recently turned up ...
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Although Pluto crosses Neptune's orbit regularly, ... In 1989, Triton was the coldest object that had yet been measured in the Solar System, [157] ...
The dwarf planet Pluto is too cold to sustain life on the surface. It has an average of -232 °C, and surface water only exists in a rocky state. The interior of Pluto may be warmer and perhaps contain a subsurface ocean. Also, the possibility of geothermal activity comes into play.
Pluto is the only trans-Neptunian object with a known atmosphere. [7] Its closest analog is the atmosphere of Triton, although in some aspects it resembles even the atmosphere of Mars. [8] [9] The atmosphere of Pluto has been studied since the 1980s by way of earth-based observation of occultations of stars by Pluto [10] [11] and spectroscopy. [12]