Clicking on the graphic above loads a 1:10 scale version of the full resolution Pluto map just published based on imagery acquired by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft 7-14 July 2015. A link to the full resolution image for high-specification desktop computers with RAM to spare is included in the article below. Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.The science team of NASA’s New Horizons mission has produced an updated global map of the dwarf planet Pluto. The map includes all resolved images of the surface acquired 7-14 July 2015, at pixel resolutions ranging from 40 kilometres (24 miles) on the Charon-facing hemisphere (left and right sides of the map) to 400 metres (1,250 feet) on the anti-Charon facing hemisphere (map center). Many additional images are expected in autumn 2015 and these will be used to complete the global map.
The New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto and its moons on July 14. For high-specification desktop computers with RAM to spare, a full resolution (18630 by 9315 pixel, 5.221MB) version of the above image is available by clicking here.
The science team of NASA’s New Horizons mission has produced this global map of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, from the data received so far from the 14 July flyby.
For the first time, images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft are revealing bright and dark regions on the surface of faraway Pluto — the primary target of the New Horizons close flyby in mid-July.
The New Horizons team described a wide range of findings about the Pluto system in its first research paper published today — just three months after NASA’s historic first exploration of the dwarf planet. New Horizons has revealed a degree of diversity and complexity on Pluto and its moons that few expected in the frigid outer reaches of the solar system.