The ominous warning – “winter is coming”, popularised by fantasy series Game of Thrones – applies equally well to Pluto.
The dwarf planet’s tenuous atmosphere appears to be on the verge of a stunning collapse due to a change in the seasons and approaching colder conditions, according to research to be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Discovered in 1930, it was only around 1980 that astronomers began to suspect Pluto might have an atmosphere. That atmosphere was tentatively discovered in 1985 and fully confirmed by independent observations in 1988.
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At the time, astronomers had no way of knowing what dramatic changes were in store for the little world’s thin envelope of nitrogen, methane and hydrocarbons.
A cosmic coincidence
By a cosmic coincidence, the last decades of the 20th century and first decades of the 21st also saw a lucky alignment of Earth, Pluto and the dense stellar fields of the distant centre of the Milky Way.
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