NASA discovers 'a new kind of climate' on Pluto, unlike anything else in our solar system

 Here's something cool- NASA' James Webb Space Telescope (that I used to do communications about) discovered something about the atmosphere of Pluto!

(image: Pluto's mysterious blue haze is the primary driver of the dwarf planet's climate. (Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

James Webb telescope discovers 'a new kind of climate' on Pluto, unlike anything else in our solar system

LIVE SCIENCE, Sharmila Kuthunur published June 15, 2025

When NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto in 2015, it shattered the notion that the dwarf planet was a dormant ball of ice, instead revealing it to be rich with icy plains and jagged mountains. But one of the biggest surprises floated above it all: a bluish, multi-layered haze blanketing the world's sky, stretching more than 185 miles (300 kilometers) above the surface — far higher and more intricate than scientists had predicted.

Now, nearly a decade later, new data from the Webb telescope confirm that Pluto's haze isn't just a visual oddity, it also controls the dwarf planet's climate.

"This is unique in the solar system," Tanguy Bertrand, an astronomer at the Paris Observatory in France who led the analysis, told Live Science. "It's a new kind of climate, let's say."

The findings, described in a study published June 2 in the journal Nature Astronomy, suggest similar dynamics may be at play on other haze-shrouded worlds in our solar system, and even offer clues about our own planet's early climate.

Lifting the haze 

Pluto's high-altitude haze is made of complex organic molecules from sunlight-driven reactions of methane and nitrogen. The idea that this haze could control Pluto's climate was first proposed in 2017. Computer models suggested these particles absorb sunlight during the day and release it back into space as infrared energy at night, cooling the atmosphere much more efficiently than gases alone. This could also explain why Pluto's upper atmosphere is roughly -333 degrees Fahrenheit (-203 degrees Celsius) — 30 degrees cooler than expected.

These findings also open up the possibility that similar haze-driven climates might exist on other hazy worlds, such as Neptune's moon Triton or Saturn's moon Titan, Bertrand said.

Even Earth's distant past might bear a resemblance, the researchers said. Before oxygen transformed our planet's skies, it's possible that Earth was veiled in a haze of organic particles — a blanket that may have helped stabilize temperatures and foster early life.

"By studying Pluto's haze and chemistry, we might get new insights into the conditions that made early Earth habitable," Zhang said in the statement.