{"id":937895,"date":"2026-05-04T21:19:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/937895\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T21:19:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:19:28","slug":"astronomers-believe-theyve-detected-an-atmosphere-around-a-tiny-icy-world-beyond-pluto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/937895\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers believe they\u2019ve detected an atmosphere around a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study suggests that a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto<\/a> harbors a thin, delicate atmosphere that may have been created by volcanic eruptions or a comet strike.<\/p>\n

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Just 300 miles or so across, this mini Pluto is thought to be the solar system\u2019s smallest object yet with a clearly detected global atmosphere bound by gravity, said lead researcher Ko Arimatsu of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an amazing development, but it sorely needs independent verification. The implications are profound if verified,\u201d said Southwest Research Institute\u2019s Alan Stern, the lead scientist behind NASA\u2019s New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond. He was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n

The finding offers fresh insight into our solar system\u2019s farthest, coldest objects<\/a> in a region known as the Kuiper Belt<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt changes our view of small worlds in the solar system, not only beyond Neptune,\u201d Arimatsu said in an email. Finding an atmosphere around such a small object was \u201cgenuinely surprising,\u201d he added, and challenges \u201cthe conventional view that atmospheres are limited to large planets, dwarf planets and some large moons.\u201d<\/p>\n

This so-called minor planet \u2014 formally known as (612533) 2002 XV93 \u2014 is considered a plutino, circling the sun twice in the time it takes Neptune to complete three solar orbits. At the time of the study, it was more than 3.4 billion miles (5.5 billion kilometers) away, farther than even Pluto, the only other object in the Kuiper Belt with an observed atmosphere.<\/p>\n

This cosmic iceball\u2019s atmosphere is believed to be 5 million to 10 million times thinner than Earth\u2019s protective atmosphere, according to the the study appearing Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 50 to 100 times thinner than even Pluto\u2019s tenuous atmosphere. The likeliest atmospheric chemicals are methane, nitrogen or carbon monoxide, any of which could reproduce the observed dimming as the object passed before the star, according to Arimatsu.<\/p>\n

Further observations, especially by NASA\u2019s Webb Space Telescope, could verify the makeup of the atmosphere, according to Arimatsu.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why future monitoring is so important,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the atmosphere fades over the next several years, that would support an impact origin. If it persists, or varies seasonally, that would point more toward ongoing internal gas supply\u201d from ice volcanoes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new study suggests that a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto harbors a thin, delicate atmosphere that may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":937896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[70,413,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-937895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116518399643064015","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/937896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}