Is extraterrestrial life possible?: NASA reports blue skies and water on Pluto

New discoveries support multiple theories

Ten days after NASA declared liquid water was found on Mars, the US space agency announced the discovery of ice and a beautiful blue sky on Pluto. The findings encourage the possibility of extraterrestrial life on the dwarf-planet.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According to a NASA spokesman, "New Horizons has detected numerous small, exposed regions of water ice on Pluto. The discovery was made from data collected by the Ralph spectral composition mapper on New Horizons."

The theory of a liquid sea existing beneath Pluto's surface is gaining momentum since the confirmation of water ice on its surface. 
A deep crack running from a crater on the dwarf-planet was highlighted in images NASA beamed back in July. Surprisingly, the water ice was found in the very same crack of the planet. This crater, that appears to have a peak and a letter C shaped in it, is now informally named Elliot Crater, while the faults running away from it are called Virgil Fossa. 
A new image was released recently showing a 280-miles-across section where the water ice was discovered. A NASA spokesman stated, "The strongest signatures of water ice occur along Virgil Fossa, just west of Elliot Crater on the left side of the insert image, and also in Viking Terra near the top of the frame. 
"A major outcrop also occurs in Bare Montes towards the right of the image, along with numerous much smaller outcrops, mostly associated with impact craters and valleys between mountains." 
According to Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) team member, Jason Cook, "Large expanses of Pluto don't show exposed water ice because it's apparently masked by other, more volatile ices across most of the planet." 
He continued, saying, "Understanding why water appears exactly where it does, and not in other places, is a challenge that we are digging into."
What drew attention from the New Horizons team was the way the haze particles scattered blue light. NASA New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, from SwRI, stated, "Who would have expected a blue sky in the Kuiper Belt? It is gorgeous."
According to SwRI's science team researcher Carly Howett, "That striking blue tint tells us about the size and composition of the haze particles." 
She continued, "A blue sky often results from scattering of sunlight by very small particles. On Earth, those particles are very tiny nitrogen molecules. On Pluto they appear to be larger-but still relatively small-soot-like particles we call tholins."
Tholin particles are believed to form high in the atmosphere, where scientists explain ultraviolet sunlight breaks and ionizes methane and nitrogen molecules. This allows them to form complex positively and negatively charged ions. After recombining, they form complex macromolecules.

The more complex molecules continue to grow and combine until they turn into small particles, the more volatile gases condense and coat their surfaces with ice frost before they have time to fall through the atmosphere to the surface, which is why Pluto has red coloring. 
The New Horizons spacecraft is presently 3.1 billion miles, or five billion kilometers, away from Earth, with all systems healthy and functioning normally.  

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