A more definitive black and white portraits of Pluto have been released by NASA. The photos that were taken by the agency's New Horizons hover during a close flyby in July showcase upclose images of the dwarf planet's bizarre landscape.
"These new images give us a breathtaking, super-high-resolution window into Pluto's geology," Alan Stern, lead investigator of New Horizons from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, said. The first set of photos taken at a distance between 4.67 billion and 2.66 billion miles mostly feature craters, icy mountains and frosty grounds. The images that came are estimated 250 to 280 feet per pixel, the approximate size of half a city block according to NDTV.
"Nothing of this quality was available for Venus or Mars until decades after their first flybys, yet at Pluto, we're there already - down among the craters, mountains and ice fields - less than five months after flyby!" he further stated. "The science we can do with these images is simply unbelievable."
Among the images captured include mountainous icy shorelines along the Sputnik Planum borders were "stunning at this resolution," John Spencer of the New Horizons science team member said; planet's craters with layered interior walls that may signify "an important change in composition or event"; and Tartarus Dorsa, an unofficial name for the "rounded and bizarrely textured mountains."
"New Horizons thrilled us during the July flyby with the first close images of Pluto, and as the spacecraft transmits the treasure trove of images in its onboard memory back to us, we continue to be amazed by what we see," NASA's Science Mission Directorate associate administrator John Grunsfeld stated.
Even if the flyby took place last July, transferring images may take up to one year. Nevertheless, scientists are all the more excited to view more photos at their highest resolution possible.
