The process of downlinking the contents of the New Horizons spacecraft's onboard digital storage continues, after its close encounter with the Pluto system on 14 July 2015. As we have noted before, this will continue throughout 2016, so there are still plenty of surprises waiting to be revealed by this amazing little spacecraft.
This post shows just a couple of the hi-res images recently released by NASA, but if you want to see more data/images/videos please go to:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/index.php
This post shows just a couple of the hi-res images recently released by NASA, but if you want to see more data/images/videos please go to:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/index.php
The above image was taken on 14 July 2015, just 13 minutes before closest approach to Pluto, from a range of around 9,550 miles. The framed area is about 50 miles square, showing underlining ancient crater-like features. Super imposed upon this is a huge number of younger pitted features, each around 100s of yards across by 10s of yard deep. It is believed that the pits have been formed by some form of surface process, rather than by external impacts
This image was taken on 14 July 2015 just 15 minutes before closest approach to Pluto from a range of around 10,000 miles. The 'ground scale' is about 50 miles across the image, and shows a mountain/plain boundary. The mountains are believed to comprise water-ice blocks about 1.5 miles high, which fall to a boundary with a plain of nitrogen-rich ices. The plain is predominantly flat with a cellular structure.
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