One hemisphere of Pluto appears to have large spots evenly lined up along the equator.
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Consequently, with the New Horizons spacecraft nearing Pluto, the astronomical community hasn’t been as excited as this since August 1989, when we enthusiastically waited for the Voyager 2 spacecraft to give us our first detailed view of Neptune.
The New Horizons probe has spotted no signs of rings or additional moons in the Pluto system, so the spacecraft will remain on its original trajectory when it zooms past the dwarf planet on July 14, NASA officials announced Wednesday (July 2).
Soon, we will know if there are differences in the presence of methane ice from one part of Pluto to another, he added in a statement.
Methane is colorless and odorless, and is commonly found on Earth in the atmosphere, as well as underground. The astronomers said every system functions normally, which means that New Horizons is in very good shape and will complete the mission successfully. As for Charon, the images paint the moon as having a dark polar region, with variations in brightness at lower latitudes. REX is made up of two circuit boards.
NASA speculates that Pluto inherited its methane from the time the of the solar system’s creation, about 4.5 billion years ago. A rice-sized particle could cause catastrophic damage to New Horizons at the speed it is traveling – now 30,800 miles per hour. New Horizons’ mission planners have completed the last of three planned targeting maneuvers to line up the spacecraft’s approach. Linscott and other members of the REX team plan to then use this information to learn about the temperature, pressure and composition of Pluto’s atmosphere and surface conditions.
The location of the Alice ultraviolet imaging spectrograph on the New Horizons spacecraft is indicated.
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“We’ve known before New Horizons that there are lots of bright and dark patches [on Pluto]”, New Horizons co-investigator Marc Buie told Mashable in an interview. Scientists from the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory were in charge of designing, building and operating the spacecraft. That’s exciting news for any space enthusiast, and as New Horizons draws closer and closer, we can’t help but wonder what it will find next. Now, the probe launched in January of 2006 and is scheduled to fly past Pluto on July 14th, where the craft will come as close as 6,200 miles from reaching the surface of Pluto.
