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 icy plains of Pluto resolved by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft stretch as wide as Texas, enveloping mountain ranges and bizarre hilly outcrops in a mosaic revealing one lobe of the distant world’s heart-shaped reservoir of exotic frozen carbon monoxide, nitrogen and methane.
Speeding through the outer solar system after a nine-year trek from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is awake and preparing for an encounter next summer with Pluto.
Launched in 2007, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is preparing for its encounter with dwarf planet Ceres, imaging the body from a distance of 740,000 miles as a final calibration of the probe’s science camera. Dawn will be captured into Ceres’ orbit in March 2015.
