A great new colour mosaic of the first Pluto flyby images released so far is now available from Thomas Appéré. The images show the Sputnik Planum plains and Norway Montes mountains in the southern part of the large “heart” feature. More images to come soon!
image gallery
Image Gallery: icy cracked plains on Pluto
A new close-up view of Pluto’s surface was released today, this time showing an expanse of icy plains next to the previous mountains imaged earlier. More bizarre and unexpected terrain, with polygons similar to ones seen in icy regions on Mars and Earth, but on a larger scale, and how they’re formed here isn’t known yet. Other mounds and small pits are also visible. As noted in the press conference again, Pluto is turning out to show much more evidence for geological activity than had been anticipated. This image version still has compression artifacts in it, but there are more and higher-resolution images to come!
Image Gallery: the mountains and canyons of Pluto and Charon
The first-ever closeup view of Pluto’s surface from the flyby by New Horizons has been released, as well as the best view yet of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon. The new Pluto image shows mountains up to 3,500 metres (11,000 feet) tall in this region, unexpected on such a small, cold planetary body. They are thought to be made of solid water ice and no more than 100,000 years old, which is very young geologically. Those and other features suggest that Pluto may still be geologically active even now.
Read MoreImage Gallery: the mountains and canyons of Pluto and Charon
Image Gallery: Pluto Just Before Closest Approach
The best ever photo of Pluto so far was just released by NASA as New Horizons neared closest approach (and successfully completed), taken on July 13, 2015 from a distance of 768,000 kilometres (476,000 miles). We can now see this world in detail for the first time in history. The probe is now on the other side of Pluto, heading outward. Many more images from closest approach are to come, and a lot of other data, starting tomorrow!
Image Gallery: Pluto and Charon, July 11-12, 2015
New colour and black & white images of Pluto and its largest moon Charon, taken by New Horizons on July 11 and 12, 2015. Much closer (and better) colour images are scheduled to be available tonight or tomorrow. As of this post, there are now less than 13 hours until closest approach!