New Horizons – Page 2 – Astronomy Now

See the highest-resolution snapshots from July’s Pluto flyby

4 December 2015 Stephen Clark

Scientists are marveling at some of the best views of Pluto recorded by the New Horizons spacecraft during its July 14 flyby of the unexplored icy dwarf in a set of photos released Friday showing Pluto’s icy, rugged topography in eye-popping detail.

Secrets behind Pluto’s pastels far from being answered

24 September 2015 Stephen Clark

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.

Haunting sunset vista shows foggy hazes on Pluto

17 September 2015 Stephen Clark

A crescent Pluto stars in pictures captured just after NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft’s July flyby of the distant dwarf planet, exposing eerie backlit fog banks and glacial flows that scientists say hint at an Earth-like weather cycle.

Scientists eager for restart of Pluto photo pipeline

27 August 2015 Stephen Clark

The first images from the New Horizons spacecraft since late July will come back to Earth on 5 September, and scientists are salivating over what the new pictures will reveal about Pluto.

Pluto’s Moon Charon mapped

31 July 2015 Astronomy Now

The science team of NASA’s New Horizons mission has produced this global map of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, from the data received so far from the 14 July flyby.

The heart of Pluto in high-resolution

29 July 2015 Stephen Clark

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.

Pluto Dazzles in False Colour

24 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Four images from the New Horizon’s probe’s LORRI camera have been combined with colour from the Ralph instrument to create this spectacular false colour image of Pluto.

Pluto probe’s camera sees striking geologic boundary

21 July 2015 Stephen Clark

A newly discovered mountain range lies near the southwestern margin of Pluto’s Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region), situated between bright, icy plains and dark, heavily-cratered terrain. This image was acquired by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 48,000 miles.

Pluto’s moons Nix and Hydra resolved

21 July 2015 Stephen Clark

Two of Pluto’s mini-moons, the mysterious Nix and Hydra, have transitioned from featureless points of light into their own worlds with new imagery from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.

Pluto and Charon as never seen before

15 July 2015 Stephen Clark

A spectacular sampling of imagery from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveals mountains and water ice bedrock on Pluto, an active crust on its largest moon Charon and the first resolved views of the icy world’s tiny mini-moons.