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New photos taken by the spacecraft zooming toward Pluto explain reveals a variety of new data on the dwarf planet’s complex and varied surface.
The photos were taken by the spacecraft when it was about 50 million miles or 80 million kilometers away from the dwarf planet.
The photos were captured using the long range camera between May 8 and May 12.
The NASA’s New Horizon probe will make its first ever flyby of Pluto on July 14.
Alan Stern, of the Southwest research Institute in Boulder, Colorado and New Horizon principal investigator said, “These new images show us that Pluto’s differing faces are each distinct, likely hinting at what may be very complex surface geology or variations in surface composition from place to place.”
Stern added, “These images also continue to support the hypothesis that Pluto has a polar cap whose extent varies with longitude. We’ll be able to make a definitive determination of the polar bright region’s iciness when we get compositional spectroscopy of that region in July.”
In mid April New Horizon probe has captured the first pictures of Pluto, when it was about 70 million miles away from the dwarf planet.
In the first images the surface variation were only depicted as areas of different brightness.
The new images captured by the spacecraft are twice the resolution of the first photos; scientists can now pick out more details of the plutonian surface.
The New Horizon was launched in January 2006, now it is 2.95 billion miles away from Earth.
The New Horizon spacecraft is in good shape and all the systems are in good condition as well.
Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science division, concluded: “As New Horizons closes in on Pluto, it’s transforming from a point of light to a planetary object of intense interest. We’re in for an exciting ride for the next seven weeks.”
