James Webb has just revealed an unexpected secret about Pluto

Long considered an unattractive celestial body for scientists, Pluto holds many surprises. It must be said that this dwarf planet is little known, and recent observations made with the help of the James Webb telescope have revealed an incredible discovery.

But long before that, in 2015, the New Horizons space probe flew over this celestial body. Instead of expecting an icy world of little importance, scientists were able to see varied landscapes with mountains of water ice and hills of nitrogen ice. And that's not all, because Pluto does indeed have an atmosphere, rising to a height of 300 kilometers and topped with a bluish haze. 

The latter is quite mysterious, although microorganisms are present when the Sun shines on the planet. In 2017, a team of scientists led by planetary scientist Xi Zhang suggested in the journal Nature Astronomy that this blue haze served to regulate Pluto's climate. According to them, the suspended particles are capable of absorbing sunlight during the day and transmitting this energy in the form of infrared radiation at night, thereby cooling the atmosphere. 

However, this theory remained impossible to confirm because of Charon, its natural satellite, which prevents observations of Pluto. But all that changed with the arrival of the James Webb Telescope, which made it possible to observe the planet's infrared emissions and thus confirm this theory dating back to 2017. 

This discovery is quite astonishing and could even have repercussions for other celestial bodies in our solar system. It should be noted that some natural satellites have the same type of atmosphere, such as Triton, which orbits Neptune, and Titan, which orbits Saturn. In fact, it is possible that these little-known worlds are also controlled by their atmospheres and the fog present there. 

And scientists are not stopping there, because Earth, before oxygen appeared, may also have been enveloped in a similar fog. And if this is confirmed, it would seem that it played a role in regulating temperature, also promoting the development of life.