Planet Pluto Lower Atmosphere

The large telescope used by the astronomers has revealed the lower atmosphere of the farthest planet pluto. The scientists found unexpectedly large amounts of methane in the atmosphere, and also discovered that the atmosphere is hotter than the surface by about 40 degrees, although it still only reaches a frigid minus 180 degrees Celsius.

These properties of Pluto's atmosphere may be due to the presence of pure methane patches or of a methane-rich layer covering the dwarf planet's surface. Pluto, which is about a fifth the size of Earth, is composed primarily of rock and ice. As it is about 40 times further from the Sun than the Earth on average, it is a very cold world with a surface temperature of about minus 220 degrees Celsius!

It has been known since the 1980s that Pluto also has a tenuous atmosphere, which consists of a thin envelope of mostly nitrogen, with traces of methane and probably carbon monoxide. As Pluto moves away from the Sun, during its 248 year-long orbit, its atmosphere gradually freezes and falls to the ground. In periods when it is closer to the Sun as it is now, the temperature of Pluto's solid surface increases, causing the ice to sublimate into gas.With lots of methane in the atmosphere, it becomes clear why Pluto's atmosphere is so warm.

Virgin Mobiles --> Pink Slip Plan

Virgin Mobile announced a Pink Slip Protection plan that waives as many as three months of wireless phone charges if a customer is laid off. Many companies have been taking the economy into account with their advertising messages by telling consumers they feel their pain.

Virgin Mobile will pay as much as $90 a month for three months. It's only for monthly plans without annual contracts, you must be employed to enroll and you must be on a monthly plan for at least two months before claiming benefits.The wireless carrier is offering the Pink Slip plan in part because unemployment issues tend to affect its prepaid base more than its customers on annual plans.

Virgin Mobile also rolled out an unlimited text and messaging plan for $19.99. Customers can purchase that plan and pay 10 cents a minute for additional voice calls.Payments of $90 a month are not as significant as the hundreds of dollars a month the car companies might waive for people who get laid off. But the message Virgin Mobile is sending will resonate with consumers.

Exo Planet Super Neptune Discovered

Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have discovered a planet somewhat larger and more massive than Neptune orbiting a star 120 light-years from Earth. While Neptune has a diameter 3.8 times that of Earth and a mass 17 times Earth's, the new world is 4.7 times the size of Earth and has 25 Earth masses.

Transit detections are particularly useful because the amount of dimming tells the astronomers how big the planet must be. By combining transit data with measurements of the star's "wobble" made by large telescopes like Keck, astronomers can determine the mass of the planet.A number of Neptune-like planets have been found recently by radial velocity searches, but HAT-P-11b is only the second Neptune-like planet found to transit its star, thus permitting the precise determination of its mass and radius.

The newfound world orbits very close to its star, revolving once every 4.88 days. As a result, it is baked to a temperature of around 1100 degrees F. The star itself is about three-fourths the size of our Sun and somewhat cooler.


HAT-P-11 is in the constellation Cygnus, which puts in it the field of view of NASA's upcoming Kepler spacecraft. Kepler will search for extrasolar planets using the same transit technique pioneered by ground-based telescopes. This mission potentially could detect the first Earth-like world orbiting a distant star. "In addition, however, we expect Kepler to measure the detailed properties of HAT-P-11 with the extraordinary precision possible only from space.