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POPSPoor Little Pluto Pluto is mostly brown. This picture captures the true colors of Pluto as well as the highest surface resolution so far recovered. No spacecraft has yet visited this most distant dwarf planet in our Solar System. The above map was created by tracking brightness changes from Earth of Pluto during times when it was being partially eclipsed by its moon Charon. The map therefore shows the hemisphere of Pluto that faces Charon. Pluto's brown color is thought dominated by frozen methane deposits metamorphosed by faint but energetic sunlight. The dark band below Pluto's equator is seen to have rather complex coloring, however, indicating that some unknown mechanisms may have affected Pluto's surface.
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POPSFound ! 'Missing link' brown dwarf Scientists have often wondered how big a gas cloud had to be, before the collapse due to it's own gravity would turn it from a large planet into a small star. They have found gas giants, and brown dwarfs either side, but this is the closest to the line. There will probably be a few 'missing links', because beside the mass, the flash point could depend on what the clouds are made of. Scientists always love it when they find something that needs a new category.
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