NASA has released the sharpest images yet of the dwarf planet Pluto, taken from its New Horizons spacecraft during its now-famous flyby on July 14.
The new, super high-resolution images show craters, glacial terrain and mountainous parts of the previously mysterious Pluto.
Another new image shows blocks of Pluto's water-ice crust appear jammed together in the informally named al-Idrisi mountains. (NASA)
The photos are part of a series of images of a strip 80 kilometres wide, starting at Pluto's horizon from the vantage point of the spacecraft and stretching 800 kilometres northwest of the informally named Sputnik Planum, a large icy plain.
NASA took the images with its telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), over a time span of about one minute.
Pluto's 'Sputnik Planum,' a giant icy plain, is seen in this image released in September. (NASA)
The space agency says the pictures have "resolutions of about 250-280 feet (77-85 metres) per pixel," meaning the features the images reveal are smaller than half a city block, the agency explained.
These are the latest in a series of stunning images the space agency has released since the summer flyby. Previous images have shown frozen water, massive canyons, ice peaks and even a close-up of one of Pluto's moons, Kerberos.
The findings have shown that the dwarf planet is not the dead, frozen ice ball it was thought to be — many of the recent findings have suggested that it has a geologically active interior.
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét