June 10, 2016

Krun Macula Meets Sputnik Planum on Pluto [Video]

Latest New Horizons images of Pluto are the mission's highest-resolution captures

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

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Data continues to beam back from New Horizons' speedy journey through the Pluto-Charon system in July 2015. By contrast to this interplanetary flythrough, the information reaches us at a painful, but necessary rate of no more than 1 kilobit a second. Included in the latest batch are precious images that are the highest physical resolution that we've ever seen of Pluto's surface, or are likely to see again for quite a while.

Here is a close up of the 'shoreline' of the rugged highlands (Krun Macula - an informal name after a lord of the Underworld and dark 'macula' on planetary surfaces) as they meet the icy plains (Sputnik Planum) of Pluto. The first image shows the overall context.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

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And in detail, reorientated. This combines different resolutions, but the lower half reaches 260 feet (80 meter) per pixel details - the best from New Horizons at Pluto. The deep valleys towards the bottom are up to 25 miles (40 km) long and reach 2 miles (3 km) in depth.

And you can see all of the highest resolution images that New Horizons took, stitched together in this remarkable mosaic - from limb of the world to near the terminator and deep shadow. Here it's been animated for a journey across Pluto's frigid landscape.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab/Southwest Research Inst.

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