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The pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto, with resolutions of about 250-280 feet (77-85 meters) per pixel – revealing features smaller than half a city block on Pluto’s surface. Lower resolution color data (at about 2,066 feet, or 630 meters, per pixel) were added to create this new image.
NASA's New Horizons probe has returned the first color images of Pluto. The small blurry dots in the newly-released photo are Pluto and Charon, the largest of Pluto's moons. New Horizons captured ...
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris.
[6] [a] Charon and Pluto are also tidally locked, so that they always present the same face toward each other. The IAU General Assembly in August 2006 considered a proposal that Pluto and Charon be reclassified as a double planet, but the proposal was abandoned. [7] Like Pluto, Charon is a perfect sphere to within measurement uncertainty. [8]
NASA has published the first color movies of Pluto and its moon Charon from the New Horizons mission. New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern noted, "It's exciting to see Pluto and Charon ...
NASA launched the New Horizon spacecraft in 2006 to learn more about the icy dwarf planet Pluto. Here are some of the first photos from that mission, taken from between 125 and 115 million miles away.
The largest and second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System, Pluto is primarily made of ice and rock. It is relatively small, with a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit. This photograph of Pluto is a composite of four near-true color images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015.
Tombaugh Regio (/ ˈ t ɒ m b aʊ ˈ r ɛ dʒ i oʊ /), sometimes nicknamed "Pluto's heart" after its shape, [2] is the largest bright surface feature of the dwarf planet Pluto. [3] [4] [5] It lies just north of Pluto's equator, to the northeast of Belton Regio and to the northwest of Safronov Regio, which are both dark features. [6]