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Water vapor in the atmosphere becomes hard ice if the earth is cold enough. Same thing with other planets’ components: either “up in the air” or solid part of planet, asteroid, whatever. In the mid 1990’s, scientists did not want to miss the chance to learn about the atmosphere of Pluto. Because then is was closer to the sun than it would be for the next two hundred years.

And of course the farther it goes from the sun, the colder it gets, and with a surface temperature there of minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit to start with, they thought its thin atmosphere, shrouded in methane gas, would condense onto the surface until they would not be able to analyze it for another two hundred years, and they were pretty sure it had water, mixed in with methane and rock. The man in Flagstaff that discovered Pluto at Lowell Observatory was really interested in the flyby NASA planned. To see if there were volcanoes on Pluto, and to look for erupting materials that on earth would be gases.