NASA releases first Pluto flyby images
livefyreEmailNASAPlutoSurface.jpgCloseup image of Pluto. (NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI)NASA has released the first images taken during New Horizons historic flyby of dwarf planet Pluto.We have got a whole bunch of high-resolution observations safely on the spacecraft, said New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team Leader John Spencer, during a press conference at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which is managing the mission. Were now focusing on small details on this amazing world.Related: New Horizons spacecraft makes historic Pluto flybyNASA released its first closeup image of an area near Plutos equator Wednesday, which contains a range of mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet above the dwarf planets icy surface.These mountains are quite spectacular, said Spencer.New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern compared the range to the Rocky Mountains, adding that they provide clues about Plutos geology. The steep topography means that the bedrock that made these mountains must be of H20, water ice, he said. We can be really sure that the water is there in great abundance. The image was taken about an hour-and-a-half before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 478,000 miles from the planets surface.NASA also released an image of Plutos largest moon Charon, which clearly shows a swath of cliffs and troughs stretching about 600 miles across its surface.Charon blew our socks off when we had this new image today, said New Horizons Deputy Project Scientist Cathy Olkin, during the press conference. We have just been thrilled.Imaging obtained by New Horizons and transmitted to Earth early Wednesday morning also sheds light on Pluto's outermost moon Hydra. Since its discovery in 2005, Hydra has been known only as a fuzzy dot of uncertain shape, size, and reflectivity, according to NASA, although New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) reveals the moon's irregularly shaped body. http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/07/16/nasa-releases-first-pluto-flyby-images/
Tags
Who is online
126 visitors