Wright Mons in colour. This composite image of a possible ice volcano on Pluto includes pictures taken by the New Horizons spacecraft’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on 14 July 2015, from a range of about 30,000 miles (48,000 kilometres), showing features as small as 1,500 feet (450 metres) across. Sprinkled across the LORRI mosaic is enhanced colour data from the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), from a range of 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometres) and at a resolution of about 2,100 feet (650 metres) per pixel. The entire scene is 140 miles (230 kilometres) across. Image credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.Scientists with NASA’s New Horizons mission have assembled this highest-resolution colour view of one of two potential cryovolcanoes spotted on the surface of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015.
This feature, known as Wright Mons, was informally named by the New Horizons team in honour of the Wright brothers. At about 90 miles (150 kilometres) across and 2.5 miles (4 kilometres) high, this feature is enormous. If it is in fact a volcano, as suspected, it would be the largest such feature discovered in the outer solar system.
Mission scientists are intrigued by the sparse distribution of red material in the image and wonder why it is not more widespread. Also perplexing is that there is only one identified impact crater on Wright Mons itself, telling scientists that the surface (as well as some of the crust underneath) was created relatively recently. This is turn may indicate that Wright Mons was volcanically active late in Pluto’s history.Image credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.
Three years after the New Horizons spacecraft raced past Pluto and its large moon Charon, mission scientists have released the most accurate colour views yet, showing the distant worlds as they would appear to an astronaut’s eyes.
Geologists said Thursday they are bewildered by images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft baring unseen landscapes on Pluto with unexpected “snakeskin” textures, colourful chasms routing through ancient landforms, and vivid new views of apparent glacial flows.
This ethereal scene captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft tells yet another story of Pluto’s diversity of geological and compositional features — this time in an enhanced colour image of the north polar area. A canyon about 45 miles wide runs close to the north pole, its degraded walls suggesting evidence for an ancient period of tectonics.
