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.
After studying Ceres for more than eight months from its low-altitude science orbit, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will move higher up for different views of the dwarf planet.
Scientists with NASA’s New Horizons mission have assembled this highest-resolution colour view of Wright Mons, one of two potential cryovolcanoes spotted on the surface of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015. The feature is 90 miles across and 2.5 miles high, which would make the largest volcano in the outer solar system.
Using data from NASA’s Lunar reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists have discovered two geologically young craters — one 16 million, the other between 75 and 420 million years old — in the darkest regions of the Moon’s south pole. Such craters provide valuable information on the frequency of collisions in the solar system.