{"id":19369,"date":"2016-05-27T20:58:09","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T12:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/new-horizons-provides-the-best-close-up-of-pluto-some-of-us-might-ever-see\/"},"modified":"2016-05-27T20:58:09","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T12:58:09","slug":"new-horizons-provides-the-best-close-up-of-pluto-some-of-us-might-ever-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/new-horizons-provides-the-best-close-up-of-pluto-some-of-us-might-ever-see\/","title":{"rendered":"New Horizons provides the best close-up of Pluto some of us might ever see"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_252247\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-252247\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-252247\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/ploo2-630x496.jpg\" alt=\"Image: Pluto view\" width=\"630\" height=\"496\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/ploo2-630x496.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/ploo2.jpg 763w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-252247\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craters and linear features are scattered across Pluto\u2019s terrain in this high-resolution view from NASA\u2019s New Horizons probe. (Credit: NASA \/ JHUAPL \/ SwRI)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Almost a year after NASA\u2019s New Horizons probe flew past Pluto, the team behind the mission has put together a long mosaic strip that includes all of the highest-resolution images.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis new image product is just magnetic,\u201d Alan Stern, a planetary scientist from Southwest Research Institute who serves as New Horizons\u2019 principal investigator, said today in a NASA news release. \u201cIt makes me want to go back on another mission to Pluto and get high-resolution images like these across the entire surface.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The view starts up at the edge of Pluto\u2019s disk and runs hundreds of miles, down to nearly the terminator line between Plutonian day and night. The width of the strip ranges from 45 to 55 miles, depending on the perspective.&nbsp;Peak resolution is about 260 feet per pixel.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"New Horizons' Extreme Close-Up of Pluto\u2019s Surface (no audio)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NEdvyrKokX4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The imagery for the mosaic was captured by New Horizons\u2019 LORRI camera as it flew within 9,850 miles of the surface, about 23 minutes before closest approach on July 14, 2015. The terrain varies from hummocky, cratered uplands, to mountain ranges made of ice, to plains covered with blobs of frozen nitrogen, to dark, rugged highlands.<\/p>\n<p>New Horizons is more than 235 million miles beyond Pluto by now, heading toward a 2019 rendezvous with 2014 MU69, another icy object in the broad band of material known as the Kuiper Belt.<\/p>\n<p>The probe is still sending back imagery and other data. In fact, last week New Horizons\u2019 scientists shared pictures and science&nbsp;data about&nbsp;an object beyond Pluto, known as 1994 JR1. But the Pluto pictures that make up the mosaic released today are as good as they\u2019ll get.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019d be nice for Stern and the rest of us to get another close look at the dwarf planet. But considering the lead time that\u2019s required for outer-planet missions, and the competing priorities for exploration, it\u2019ll be decades before another probe gets anywhere close to Pluto again.<\/p>\n<p>Then again \u2026 if SpaceX can spare a Falcon Heavy rocket, Stern just might get his wish sooner than we think. \u201cPayload to Pluto: 2,900 kg.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Craters and linear features are scattered across Pluto\u2019s terrain in this high-resolution view from NASA\u2019s New Horizons probe. (Credit: NASA \/ JHUAPL \/ SwRI) Almost a year after NASA\u2019s New Horizons probe flew past Pluto, the team behind the mission has put together a long mosaic strip that includes all of the highest-resolution images. \u201cThis [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2840,4809,2174,4810,4709,2848,4004],"class_list":["post-19369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-dwarf-planets","tag-nasa-new-horizons","tag-new-horizons","tag-new-horizons-probe","tag-planets","tag-pluto","tag-pluto-flyby"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}