天文学家探测到冥王星“迷你版”的稀薄大气层
科学家利用日本的三个望远镜观测到一颗名为(612533) 2002 XV93的冰冻小天体，其直径仅约500公里，并首次探测到其稀薄的大气层。
该大气层可能源于火山喷发或彗星撞击，比地球大气层薄500万到1000万倍，甚至比冥王星的大气层还要稀薄。
这项发现挑战了传统观念，表明即使是太阳系中最遥远、最寒冷的柯伊伯带小天体也可能拥有大气层。
研究人员认为，未来的观测，特别是利用詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜，将有助于验证该大气层的组成。
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A new study suggests that a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto harbors a thin, delicate atmosphere that may have been created by volcanic eruptions or a comet strike.Just 300 miles (500 kilometers) or so across, this mini Pluto is thought to be the solar system’s smallest object yet with a clearly detected global atmosphere bound by gravity, said lead researcher Ko Arimatsu of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.“This is an amazing development, but it sorely needs independent verification. The implications are profound if verified,” said Southwest Research Institute’s Alan Stern, the lead scientist behind NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond. He was not involved in the study.The finding offers fresh insight into our solar system’s farthest, coldest objects in a region known as the Kuiper Belt. Researchers used three telescopes in Japan to observe the object in 2024 as it passed in front of a background star, briefly dimming the starlight.
“It changes our view of small worlds in the solar system, not only beyond Neptune,” Arimatsu said in an email. Finding an atmosphere around such a small object was “genuinely surprising,” he added, and challenges “the conventional view that atmospheres are limited to large planets, dwarf planets and some large moons.”
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