Marking the anniversary of New Horizons’ historic flight through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015, NASA released high-resolution natural-color images of Pluto and Charon.
Pluto in true color. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Alex Parker.
These color images result from refined calibration of data gathered by New Horizons’ Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC).
The processing creates images that would approximate the colors that the human eye would perceive, bringing them closer to ‘true color’ than the images released near the encounter.
The image of Pluto was taken as New Horizons zipped toward the dwarf planet and its moons on July 14, 2015, from a range of 22,025 miles (35,445 km).
The striking features on Pluto are clearly visible, including the bright expanse of its icy, nitrogen-and-methane rich ‘heart,’ Sputnik Planitia.
Charon in true color. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Alex Parker.
The image of Charon was taken on July 14 from a range of 46,091 miles (74,176 km).
The striking features on the moon are clearly visible, including the reddish north-polar region known as Mordor Macula.
These color MVIC scans include no data from other New Horizons imagers or instruments added.
