NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft snapped this remarkable panoramic view of Pluto’s crescent on July 14, 2015. This picture, taken with the spacecraft’s wide-angle Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera, reveals with exquisite detail glaciers of frozen nitrogen, icy mountains and haunting hazes.
This panoramic image of Pluto highlights dwarf planet’s varied terrains and extended atmosphere. The scene measures 780 miles (1,250 km) across. The smooth expanse of Sputnik Planum (right) is flanked to the west (left) by rugged mountains up to 11,000 feet (3.5 km) high, including Norgay Montes in the foreground and Hillary Montes on the skyline. To the right, east of Sputnik, rougher terrain is cut by apparent glaciers. The backlighting highlights over a dozen layers of haze in the atmosphere of Pluto. The image was taken from a distance of 11,000 miles (18,000 km) to Pluto. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
This panoramic image provides evidence for a remarkably Earth-like ‘hydrological’ cycle on Pluto.
Bright areas east of the icy Sputnik Planum appear to have been blanketed by exotic ices, which may have evaporated from the surface of Sputnik and then been redeposited to the east.
The new image also reveals glaciers flowing back into Sputnik Planum from this blanketed region; these features are similar to the frozen streams on the margins of ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica.
Closer look: Pluto’s mountains and frozen plains. The scene is 230 miles (380 km) across. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
“We did not expect to find hints of a nitrogen-based glacial cycle on Pluto operating in the frigid conditions of the outer Solar System. Driven by dim sunlight, this would be directly comparable to the hydrological cycle that feeds ice caps on Earth, where water is evaporated from the oceans, falls as snow, and returns to the seas through glacial flow,” said Dr Alan Howard from the University of Virginia.
“Pluto is surprisingly Earth-like in this regard. And no one predicted it,” added Dr Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, principal investigator for New Horizons.
In this small section of the larger crescent image of Pluto, taken by NASA’s New Horizons just 15 minutes after the spacecraft’s closest approach on July 14, 2015, the setting Sun illuminates a fog or near-surface haze, which is cut by the parallel shadows of many local hills and small mountains. The image was taken from a distance of 11,000 miles (18,000 km), and the width of the image is 115 miles (185 km). Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
“This image really makes you feel you are there, at Pluto, surveying the landscape for yourself. But this image is also a scientific bonanza, revealing new details about Pluto’s atmosphere, mountains, glaciers and plains,” he said.
The image also reveals new details of hazes throughout Pluto’s extended atmosphere.
Sputnik Planum is the name of the smooth, light-bulb shaped region on the left of this composite of several New Horizons images of Pluto. The brilliantly white upland region to the right may be coated by nitrogen ice that has been transported through the atmosphere from the surface of Sputnik Planum, and deposited on these uplands. The box shows the location of the glacier detail images below. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
It shows more than a dozen thin haze layers extending from near the ground to at least 60 miles (100 km) above Pluto’s surface.
In addition, the image reveals at least one bank of fog-like, low-lying haze illuminated by the setting Sun against the dwarf planet’s night side, raked by shadows from nearby mountains.
Nitrogen ice that appears to have accumulated on the uplands on the right side of this 390-mile (630-km) wide image is draining from Pluto’s mountains onto Sputnik Planum through the 2- to 5-mile (3- to 8- km) wide valleys indicated by the red arrows. The flow front of the ice moving into Sputnik Planum is outlined by the blue arrows. The origin of the ridges and pits on the right side of the image remains uncertain. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
“In addition to being visually stunning, these low-lying hazes hint at the weather changing from day to day on Pluto, just like it does here on Earth,” said Dr Will Grundy of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
