The latest picture shows the dwarf planet’s atmosphere creating a haze around Pluto.
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New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Rough plateaus dominate the nightside of Pluto, with shadows cast by surface teasing the fine layers of haze. Along with the previously-revealed dramatic landscape of Sputnik Planum flanked by rugged ice mountains, now we can see silhouetted profiles of landscapes on the dark side of the little world.
The image was taken by New Horizons’ Multi-spectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), just 15 minutes after making its closest approach of Pluto on July 14th.
In September, researchers stated that a few the planet’s features were “surprisingly earth-like”.
In this new image of Pluto released by NASA, the dwarf planet gives out a striking resemblance to similar photographs of the Earth, taken with the Sun illuminating its sides.
“We did not expect to find hints of a nitrogen-based glacial cycle on Pluto operating in the frigid conditions of the outer solar system”, said Alan Howard, a member of the mission’s Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team. This image was generated by software that combines information from blue, red and near-infrared images to replicate the color a human eye would perceive as closely as possible. It was an image which showed Pluto’s crescent lit by the sun, but in an incomplete manner.
NASA has released the latest Pluto image, which shows the dwarf planet’s crescent, adding another stunner to its repertoire of images captured by the New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby in July.
Having successfully completed its Pluto flyby, New Horizons is now speeding out into the Kuiper Belt and has already begun course adjustments to meet up with its next proposed target: a 20-30-mile (30-45 km) wide object called 2014 MU69.
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For scientists, there’s a lot to ogle over in the high-resolution image.
