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The buildup of nitrogen is due to Pluto's vast distance from the Sun. At the equator, temperatures can drop to −240 °C (−400.0 °F; 33.1 K), causing nitrogen to freeze as water would freeze on Earth. The same polar wandering effect seen on Pluto would be observed on Earth were the Antarctic ice sheet several times larger. [101]
The geology of Pluto consists of the characteristics of the surface, crust, and interior of Pluto. Because of Pluto's distance from Earth, in-depth study from Earth is difficult. Many details about Pluto remained unknown until 14 July 2015, when New Horizons flew through the Pluto system and began transmitting data back to Earth. [1]
Photographs of Pluto taken on 14 July 2015 taken 15 minutes after New Horizon 's closest approach, from a distance of 18,000 kilometers and sent to Earth on 13 September 2015 show a near-sunset on Pluto with details of the surface and a haze in the atmosphere.
New Horizons encounters Pluto at a distance of 4.7 billion kilometres, and the communication takes 4 hours 25 minutes to reach Earth. 10 −3: 2.04 × 10 −3 ly: The most distant space probe, Voyager 1, was about 18 light-hours (130 au,19.4 billion km, 12.1 billion mi) away from the Earth as of October 2014. [29]
The average distance between Pluto and the Sun (34.72 AU [5]) is 4.81 light-hours. [6] ... Average distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 1.282 light-seconds
This is because New Horizons would require approximately 16 months after leaving the vicinity of Pluto to transmit the buffer load back to Earth. [67] At Pluto's distance, radio signals from the space probe back to Earth took four hours and 25 minutes to traverse 4.7 billion km of space. [68]
February 11, 2012: New Horizons reaches the distance of 10 AU from the Pluto system, at around 4:55 UTC. [30] July 1, 2013: New Horizons captures its first image of Charon. Charon is clearly separated from Pluto using the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI). [31] [32] October 25, 2013: New Horizons reaches the distance of 5 AU from the ...
This is a case of mutual tidal locking, as compared to that of the Earth and the Moon, where the Moon always shows the same face to Earth, but not vice versa. The average distance between Charon and Pluto is 19,570 kilometres (12,160 mi).