NASA just release their new image of Pluto and they are stunning . The header image above boast Pluto ’s crescent and was captured on July 14th by New Horizons Ralph / Multispectral Visual Imaging ( MVIC ) camera and downlinked on September 13 . In it we see the incredible Plutonian landscape painting backlit by the Sun .
“ This image really make you find you are there , at Pluto , surveying the landscape painting for yourself , ” say New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern , in a statement . “ But this image is also a scientific bonanza , revealing new item about Pluto ’s atm , plenty , glacier and plains . ”
The breathless novel view showcases an area 1,250 kilometers ( 748 international nautical mile ) across . In it we see part of the middle of Pluto — a part informally discover Sputnik Planum — and the wintry mountains surrounding it .
Earlier information garner by the LORRI instrument revealed Pluto ’s tenuous , nitrogen - ample air to be layer and hazy . In this image we can see more than a dozen stratum of thin atmospheric haze that extends as mellow as 100 kilometers ( 60 mile ) . Also visible is what appear to be a bank of low - lying haze highlighted as the Sun sets against Pluto ’s colored side . Pluto could experience daily , changing weather just like we have here on Earth .
" In addition to being visually sensational , these low - lie down hazes hint at the weather changing from day to sidereal day on Pluto , just like it does here on Earth , " said Will Grundy , confidential information of the New Horizons Composition squad from Lowell Observatory , Flagstaff , Arizona .
After the first close - up images were beamed back from New Horizons , the scientific discipline squad begin to find grounds that it could snow on Pluto , granted the C would not be like what we have here on Earth . These latest images aid to back that up by providing evidence that Pluto has an earthly concern - like hydrological cycle ; however , rather than water deoxyephedrine this process would imply exotic ices such as N sparkler . The heart of Pluto — aka Sputnik Planum — is a frozen field , rich in nitrogen ice . As this country is exposed to the small bit of sunlight Pluto receives , the glass heat and the nitrogen evaporates . It then falls back down in the form of Baron Snow of Leicester in the surround mess . The team thinks the ice then repay to Sputnik Planum in the form of icy flow as examine in previous image .
" We did not expect to encounter hint of a atomic number 7 - based frigid cycle on Pluto operating in the frigid conditions of the outer solar system , ” say Alan Howard , a member of the delegacy ’s Geology , Geophysics and Imaging team from the University of Virginia , Charlottesville . “ drive by dim sunlight , this would be directly comparable to the hydrological hertz that feeds ice cap on Earth , where water supply is disappear from the oceans , fall as snow , and hark back to the seas through glacial flow rate . ”
These images are just a taste of what ’s to derive as it will take New Horizons 12 more calendar month to fully downlink all the data pull in from the flyby . What we ’ve image so far has shown what was once retrieve to be a boring , icy organic structure devoid of any activity to be dynamical and surprisingly Earth - like . According to Stern “ no one predicted it . ”
