Pluto’s hazy atmosphere

A simulated flyover on Pluto’s Sputnik Planum and Hillary Montes

 

This simulated flyover of two regions on Pluto, northwestern Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain) and Hillary Montes (Hillary Mountains), was created from New Horizons close-approach images. Sputnik Planum has been informally named for Earth’s first artificial satellite, launched in 1957. Hillary Montes have been informally named for Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. The images were acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). Features as small as one-half mile (1 kilometer) across are visible.

Pluto: an enigma in close-up

This simulated flyover of Pluto’s Norgay Montes (Norgay Mountains) and Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain) was created from New Horizons closest-approach images. Norgay Montes have been informally named for Tenzing Norgay, one of the first two humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Sputnik Planum is informally named for Earth’s first artificial satellite. The images were acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible.

Source: Cosmos

Pluto on Pluto

Scott Johnson on July 14th: “The best thing about the Pluto image from NASA today is the silhouette of Pluto the dog right on it.”

How I imagine Pluto today

An animation by BennuBird celebrating New Horizons while passing near Pluto and its “heart” feature on July 14th 2015.

Space artist depicted Pluto 36 years ago

Source: EarthSky

Pluto By Moonlight

It’s Antarctic winter on Pluto. The sun has not been visible for twenty years in this frigid south polar region; it will not shine again for another 80 years. The only source of natural light is starlight and moonlight from Pluto’s largest moon, Charon.

In this artist’s rendering, Pluto’s largest moon Charon rises over the frozen south pole surface of Pluto, casting a faint silvery luminescence across the distant planetary landscape. Source: NASA

Hubble observes chaotic dance of Pluto’s moons

This illustration shows the scale and comparative brightness of Pluto’s small satellites, as discovered by Hubble over the past years. Pluto’s binary companion, Charon — discovered in 1978 — is placed at the bottom for scale. The image illustrates that two of the moons are highly oblate and that the reflectivity among the moons varies from dark charcoal to the brightness of sand. As Hubble cannot resolve surface features on the moons the textures seen here are purely for illustration purposes

New Horizons Sees More Detail as It Draws Closer to Pluto

What a difference 20 million miles makes! Images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft are growing in scale as the spacecraft approaches its mysterious target. The new images, taken May 8-12 using a powerful telescopic camera and downlinked last week, reveal more detail about Pluto’s complex and high-contrast surface.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

New Horizons Timeline

Possible ice cap on Pluto

This series of New Horizons images of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was taken at 13 different times spanning 6.5 days, starting on April 12 and ending on April 18, 2015. During that time, the NASA spacecraft’s distance from Pluto decreased from about 111 million kilometers to 104 million kilometers. 

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

A postage stamp for Pluto

More than 11,000 people have signed an online petition to honor NASA's mission to Pluto and other denizens of the solar system's icy rim with a commemorative U.S. postage stamp — which is a fine way to celebrate the 82nd anniversary of Pluto's planetary coming-out party.

This concept art for a 2015 stamp celebrates NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. Credit: Dan Durda / SwRI