19 July 2015

More Pluto for the day


Jonathan Corum has an article about the icy heart of Pluto:
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is sending back images (above) of Pluto taken during its recent flyby. The images reveal a varied surface with ice mountains and frozen plains. The piano-size spacecraft traveled nine years and three billion miles to study the dwarf planet and its five moons.
A detailed image (above) of a broad crater-less plain called Sputnik Planum hints at the wide variety of surface features on Pluto. The shallow troughs crisscrossing the surface might be signs of convection, caused by heat within the planet, or might be cracks caused by surface contraction. The image was taken from a distance of almost fifty thousand miles. Sputnik Planum is part of the bright heart shape on Pluto known as Tombaugh Regio.
Rico says space continues to boggle...

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