The icy dwarf planet Pluto undergoes dramatic seasonal changes, according to images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
The pictures from Hubble revealed changes in the brightness and the colour of Pluto's surface.
Mike Brown, from the California Institute of Technology, suggested Pluto had the most dynamic surface of any object in the Solar System.
Hubble will provide our sharpest views of Pluto until the New Horizons probe approaches in 2015.
The researchers note that Pluto became significantly redder in a two-year period, from 2000 to 2002.
Imagine the Moon changing by that much
Professor Mike Brown, Caltech
When Hubble pictures taken in 1994 are compared with a new set of images taken in 2002 to 2003, astronomers see evidence that Pluto's northern polar region has become brighter.
Referring to the striking changes on Pluto, Professor Brown commented: "Imagine the Moon changing by that much. We're used to looking at the Moon and it being the same night after night. This thing has changed dramatically in that time.
"If you look around the entire Solar System, the only things that change their surfaces by any noticeable amount are the Earth, where ice caps come and go. There is Mars, where ice caps come and go. That's it.
"[With Pluto] you are looking at the surface in the Solar System that has the biggest changes of anything we've ever seen."
Pluto is one of a population of icy objects which inhabit an outer region of the Solar System called the Kuiper Belt. - BBC
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