Last week, Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto, the culmination of a nine and a half year, 3 billion mile journey. Intimate photos of the dwarf planet were quickly uploaded to Instagram, where a close up photo revealed that Pluto is beautiful - with vast mountain ranges to rival the Alps, and a great big heart-shaped marking on its belly.
The fly-past gave us a glimpse of a world at the furthest reaches of our solar system. But what would it be like to actually spend time on Pluto?
“Imagine standing on a high mountain top, looking out over a vast, flat plain which stretches into the distance,” says the astrophysicist Chris Lintott, who is co-hosting Sky At Night: Pluto Revealed on BBC Four tonight. “The view is magnificent - from a perch almost as high as Mont Blanc you can turn and observe a range of snow-capped peaks.
“The snow is slightly pink - made up of a nasty mixture of frozen methane and nitrogen. Dig deeper and you won’t find rock, but ice. These are Pluto’s crystal mountains, made of water ice.
“The temperature of -230 C makes them solid underfoot, although scientific consensus seems to be that skiing would be difficult at best. But who cares? Look out through the visor of your spacesuit - necessary because Pluto’s thin atmosphere is far too oxygen-deficient to breath - and enjoy the view.”
At 4 billion miles from the sun, Pluto is cold - but it’s not completely dark.
“The sun is much fainter than it is on Earth, but there is still a little light,” explains Lintott. “Noon on Pluto would look similar to a few minutes before dawn or after dusk on Earth.”
One day on Pluto is also 153 hours long, so noon is a more languorous concept out there. You’d have plenty of time (and just enough light) to squint your way through a copy of the Guardian, or enjoy a very long lunch break wandering alone among the toxic ice mountains.
If you want to get a very approximate feel for life on Pluto, head outside at dawn or dusk, and take a photo. Nasa is inviting people to upload their pictures online with the hashtag #PlutoTime. Here are some of the best so far:
It's #PlutoTime in the #Similkameen! Pluto is red so pink skies are plausible. This though is from #BCwildfire smoke. pic.twitter.com/U2N102LdaR
— Bryn Laidlaw (@BrynLaidlaw) July 10, 2015
#PlutoTime at Seignosse, France @NASA safe fly-by #NewHorizons pic.twitter.com/ULtUyOtsty
— Edward Dewolf (@edewolf_cx) July 13, 2015
Auckland City dusk #Plutotime pic.twitter.com/0W4s2WKOC4
— Simon Bennett (@Pookina1) July 11, 2015
This is #PlutoTime in #cornwall always lucky with the sky from here... pic.twitter.com/t6ibPRZzi0
— Herve G-WERY (@HERVEGW) July 10, 2015
This is #PlutoTime near Reykjavik, Iceland. pic.twitter.com/IOxF16K9dD
— Björn Jónsson (@bjorn_jons) July 10, 2015
The Sky At Night: Pluto Revealed is on BBC Four at 10pm, 20 July
