Nasa shares pic of a ‘rainbow-coloured’ planet. Can you guess its name? (2024)

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Nasa shares pic of a ‘rainbow-coloured’ planet. Can you guess its name? ›

“Pluto

Nasa in a statement revealed that while Pluto is not so colourful in reality, the image was processed by scientists to highlight the many subtle colour differences between the planet's distinct regions.

Jupiter: Jupiter is famous for its banded appearance, consisting of orange and brown intermixed with bands of white. This is due to its composition and the weather patterns that are common to the planet.

According to the IAU, Pluto is technically a “dwarf planet,” because it has not “cleared its neighboring region of other objects.” This means that Pluto still has lots of asteroids and other space rocks along its flight path, rather than having absorbed them over time, like the larger planets have done.

The overall color is believed to be a result of ultraviolet radiation from the distant Sun breaking up methane that is present on Pluto's surface, leaving behind a dark and red carbon-rich residue.

Pluto is shown in a rainbow of colors that distinguish the different regions on the planet. The left side of the planet is mostly blue-green with purple swirls, while the right side ranges from a vibrant yellow-green at the top to a reddish orange toward the bottom."

The ingredients required to make a rainbow are sunlight and raindrops. Currently, there is no other planet known to have liquid water on its surface or in sufficient quantities in the atmosphere to make rain. The ingredients required to make a rainbow are sunlight and raindrops.

A purple planet! Actually, the color suggestion is just speculation based on the planet's expected chemical composition. The planet, called WASP-104b, orbits 4 million km from its yellow dwarf parent star every 1.75 days.

A 'ghost planet' sounds like something JJ Abrams is considering for his next project, but that's just one of the many terms used to describe Planet Nine, a hypothetical mystery world.

Named GJ 504b, the planet is made of pink gas. It's similar to Jupiter, a giant gas planet in our own solar system. But GJ 504b is four times more massive. At 460°F, it's the temperature of a hot oven, and it's the planet's intense heat that causes it to glow.

What is NASA for kids? ›

NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA is a U.S. government agency that is responsible for science and technology related to air and space. The Space Age started in 1957 with the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgraded the status of Pluto to that of a dwarf planet because it did not meet the three criteria the IAU uses to define a full-sized planet. Essentially Pluto meets all the criteria except one—it “has not cleared its neighboring region of other objects.”

On August 24, 2006 astronomers outraged the public by declaring Pluto is no longer a planet. The official declaration by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is still controversial, but it was the result of a growing understanding that Pluto is very different from other worlds.

Neptune: The Blue Planet - NASA.

This makes Pluto a cold place covered with ice, and its surface is between negative 378 to negative 396 degrees Fahrenheit. Its thin atmosphere includes nitrogen, methane and carbon dioxide, and although the skies are blue on Pluto, the snow is red because of its chemical composition.

Actually, it's red! Pluto has long been popularly depicted as grayish or blue, though scientists have suspected for decades that the distant dwarf planet has a reddish hue.

Pluto is thought to have a rocky interior and perhaps a subsurface ocean, while its surface is covered with ice composed of water, methane and nitrogen. According to the space agency, Pluto's surface is cratered, white, tan and brownish-red in colour.

Pluto's visual apparent magnitude averages 15.1, brightening to 13.65 at perihelion. In other words, the planet has a range of colors, including pale sections of off-white and light blue, to streaks of yellow and subtle orange, to large patches of deep red.

In total, though, Pluto is mostly brown, with much of its muted color originating from small amounts of surface methane energized by ultraviolet light from the Sun.

Pluto's surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode.