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.
Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto over 85 years ago. He died in 1997, but during the historic 14 July flyby of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, Clyde’s children Alden and Annette Tombaugh will be special guests at mission headquarters. Here they reflect on their father’s legacy.
A subsurface ocean lies deep within Saturn’s moon Dione, according to new data from the Cassini mission. Two other moons of Saturn, Titan and Enceladus, are already known to hide global oceans beneath their icy crusts. Researchers believe that Dione’s crust floats on an ocean several tens of kilometres deep located 100 kilometres below the surface.
Living up to promises that the view from New Horizons will only get better, the Pluto-bound spacecraft has again bested itself with a dazzling colour view of Pluto and Charon released Thursday.