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Pluto’s haze in bands of blue

This processed image is the highest-resolution colour look yet at the haze layers in Pluto’s atmosphere. Shown in approximate true colour, the picture was constructed from a mosaic of four panchromatic images from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) splashed with Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) four-colour filter data, all acquired by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on 14 July 2015.

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Tim Peake’s Principia spacewalk

European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake pictured during his 4 hour 43 minute spacewalk to replace a failed power regulator and install cabling on the International Space Station. Tim commented on this image: “Today’s exhilarating spacewalk will be etched in my memory forever — quite an incredible feeling!”

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Possible ice volcano on Pluto has the ‘Wright stuff’

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.

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Alan Stern receives Carl Sagan Award

Dr. Alan Stern, associate vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, has been awarded the 2016 Carl Sagan Memorial Award by the American Astronautical Society (AAS).