Tag: New Horizons

  • Skies are blue and water ice is red on Pluto

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    Pluto’s haze layer shows its blue color in this picture taken by the New Horizons Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The high-altitude haze is thought to be similar in nature to that seen at Saturn’s moon Titan. The source of both hazes likely involves sunlight-initiated chemical reactions of nitrogen and methane, leading to relatively small,…

  • Charon takes center stage in new batch of New Horizons images

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    This enhanced color view of Charon comes from New Horizons’ Ralph color camera. The colors highlight the subtle variations in the composition of Charon’s crust, with the reddish region near the north pole — informally named Mordor Macular — standing out most prominently. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute With a meandering…

  • Secrets behind Pluto’s pastels far from being answered

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    In this extended color image of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, rounded and bizarrely textured mountains, informally named the Tartarus Dorsa, rise up along Pluto’s day-night terminator and show intricate but puzzling patterns of blue-gray ridges and reddish material in between. This view, roughly 330 miles (530 kilometers) across, combines blue, red and…

  • Scientists explore preliminary data from New Horizons’ Pluto-Charon flyby

    Scientists explore preliminary data from New Horizons’ Pluto-Charon flyby

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    Over two months after its historic flyby of Pluto, New Horizons is sending back a stream of data, helping its science teams answer outstanding questions about the dwarf planetary system and explore new mysteries surrounding Pluto’s formation and its relationship with the Kuiper Belt and the solar system. Post-Flyby operations: It was a moment that hundreds of thousands of people around the…

  • Haunting sunset vista shows foggy hazes on Pluto

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    Just 15 minutes after its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon. The smooth expanse of the informally named icy plain Sputnik Planum (right) is flanked to…

  • Haunting sunset vista shows foggy hazes on Pluto

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    Just 15 minutes after its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon. The smooth expanse of the informally named icy plain Sputnik Planum (right) is flanked to…

  • Scientists revel in latest Pluto close-ups

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    This synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, shows what you would see if you were approximately 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) above Pluto’s equatorial area, looking northeast over the dark, cratered, informally named Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth, expanse of icy plains…

  • Distant ice ball to become farthest object ever visited

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    Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft flying by a Kuiper Belt Object. Credit: Alex Parker A frozen fragment left over from the formation of the solar system is set to become the most distant object ever explored by a human-built space probe, scientists working on the New Horizons mission said Friday. The selection is…

  • Scientists eager for restart of Pluto photo pipeline

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    Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this global view of Pluto. (The lower right edge of Pluto in this view currently lacks high-resolution color coverage.) The images, taken when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers) away, show features as…

  • Pluto, we have a problem: Some geographical names may not fly on official maps

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    The heart-shaped area that’s prominent in this New Horizons picture of Pluto is known as Tombaugh Regio. (Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI) Some of the best-known names on Pluto — ranging from the Sputnik plains to the Hillary and Norgay mountains and the dark Cthulhu Regio — may never appear on the International Astronomical Union’s maps,…