Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 1 June 2018
Dunes on Pluto made of tiny frozen grains of methane

By MARCIA DUNN the study's lead author, they're at least tens of
AP Aerospace Writer Matt Telfer of Plymouth meters (yards) tall
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. University in England, said "Much work is left to do
(AP) — Scientists have via email Thursday. to understand dunes on
discovered dunes on Pluto He noted there are dunes Pluto," Cornell University's
made of tiny frozen grains on the scorching surface Alexander Hayes wrote in a
of methane. of Venus under a dense companion article. He was
The pale gray and white atmosphere and out in not involved in the study.
ridges were revealed the distant reaches of the "Most notably, it remains
by NASA's New Horizons solar system at minus 230 to be shown how high the
spacecraft during its 2015 degrees Celsius (minus 400 dunes are, when they are
flyby. A British-led team degrees Fahrenheit) under most active, whether they
announced the findings a thin atmosphere. change" and whether
Thursday in the journal "These are not just balls of particles can be swept into
Science. ice far out in space," he dunes without rising into the
Researchers said the dunes said, adding that frozen air.
appear to be made mostly worlds on the fringes of our Nonetheless, he described
of icy specks of methane solar system, like the dwarf the Telfer team's argument
the size of sand, with some planet Pluto, might have for uplifted methane
frozen nitrogen likely mixed been active early on. granules as convincing.
in. Thought to be relatively Researchers liken the dunes Launched in 2006, New
recent, the parallel rows of to those at White Sands, Horizons was the first
dunes are located in Pluto's New Mexico, or California's spacecraft ever to visit
heart-shaped region at the Death Valley. Pluto, passing within 7,770
base of mountains as tall as "It's a little bit lower density miles (12,500 kilometers).
the Alps and formed from than sand we're used The spacecraft is now
giant blocks of ice with to holding on the Earth," headed toward an even
frosty methane snowcaps. Brigham Young University's more distant world in our
These plains in the left lobe Jani Radebaugh, a co- solar system's so-called
of Pluto's "heart" are known author, explained by Kuiper Belt, or Twilight
as Sputnik Planitia. phone. "So it would feel Zone. It's expected to zip
Scientists were surprised lighter in your hand, but it past the Kuiper Belt object
to find dunes given Pluto's would still be granular and nicknamed Ultima Thule —
thin, weak atmosphere. would kind of flow off of orbiting 1 billion miles (1.6
They suggest nitrogen ice your hand, and your feet billion kilometers) beyond
coating the surface of This July 2015 image made by the New Horizons spacecraft would kind of crunch them Pluto — on Jan. 1.
Sputnik Planitia transformed shows dunes, small ripples at bottom right, on Pluto's Sputnik as you're walking along. It Flight controllers at Johns
into gas that lifted methane Planitia ice plain. would just kind of feel a lot Hopkins University's Applied
particles into the air. Pluto's Associated Press like you're on another sand Physics Laboratory in Laurel,
gentle winds then carried dune on the Earth." Maryland, will rouse New
and deposited the grains. Saturn's moon, Titan, and consist of methane. The team has yet to Horizons from a five-month
Dunes already have been even a comet. But Pluto's "Pretty much nowhere else determine the height of electronic hibernation next
found on Mars, Venus, are the only ones known to we know of is cold enough!" the dunes; Telfer guesses week.q

Studies of space, hearing and DNA attract $1 million awards

By MALCOLM RITTER of Science and Letters. They lege of France and the of interstellar clouds, where Emmanuelle Charpentier
NEW YORK (AP) — Seven will receive their awards in Pasteur Institute in Paris. stars form. of the Max Planck Society
scientists will share three September in Oslo. They provided insights into The prize in nanoscience, in Berlin, and Virginijus Sik-
$1 million prizes for study- Three researchers share how cells of the inner ear which deals with the world snys of Vilnius University in
ing the birthplace of stars, the neuroscience prize for transform sound into elec- on the level of atoms, was Lithuania. Siksnys worked
the mechanisms of hearing studying how we hear: A. trical signals the brain can given for development of independently of the other
and a widely used tool for James Hudspeth of the interpret. CRISPR-Cas9, which pro- two winners. The Kavli priz-
editing DNA. Rockefeller University in The astrophysics prize vided scientists a faster and es are a joint program of
Winners of the Kavli Prizes New York, Robert Fetti- was given to Ewine van simpler way to alter DNA. the Norwegian academy,
were announced Wednes- place of the University of Dishoeck of the University of The award is shared by Jen- the California-based Kavli
day after their selection by Wisconsin, Madison, and Leiden in the Netherlands nifer Doudna of the Univer- Foundation and the Norwe-
the Norwegian Academy Christine Petit of the Col- for her studies of chemistry sity of California, Berkeley, gian Ministry of Education
and Research. Awarded
every two years since 2008,
the prizes are named after
philanthropist Fred Kavli, a
Norwegian-born American
who died in 2013.
Hudspeth and Doudna
are paid by the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute,
which also supports The As-
sociated Press Health & Sci-
ence Department.q