High Resolution Images From New Horizons Flyby Past Pluto

Summary: High resolution images emerge from the New Horizons flyby past Pluto Tuesday, July 14, 2015, according to NASA releases Friday, Dec. 4.

Informally named al-Idrisi Mountains end abruptly at shoreline of informally named Sputnik Planum; highest-resolution image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveals great blocks of Pluto’s water-ice crust appear jammed together in the mountains; credit NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States, via NASA

The New Horizons flyby past Pluto July 14, 2015, accounts for close-up, high-resolution, surface-detailed images of the solar system’s other red planet in National Aeronautics and Space Administration releases Dec. 4, 2015.

Surface details benefit from New Horizons’ closest approach of 10,000 miles (17,000 kilometers) from Pluto and the ice dwarf’s Charon, Hydra, Kerberos, Nix and Styx moons. Sharpness comes from technologies unlike Gold cameras pointing and shooting close-up, 7- by 8-centimeter (2.8- by 3-inch), 3-D-stereo lunar segments during Apollo 11, 12 and 14. The unusual observing mode draws upon two of New Horizons’ seven instruments investigating atmospheres, composition, geology and surfaces of the Kuiper belt and the Pluto system.

The mode ensures non-blurriness through short exposures.

LORRI, the long range reconnaissance imager, fulfills responsibilities as the grand piano-sized spacecraft’s telescopic camera charged with far-side maps, high-resolution geologic data and long-distance encounter data. The MVIC infrared spectrometer and visible imager generate color, composition and thermal maps for Ralph, Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera and Pluto Exploration Remote Sensing Investigation instrument. The coordination heightens resolutions to five times that of the best images of Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, Aug. 25, 1989, by the Voyager 2 space probe.

The resolution is six times New Horizons’ global map of resolved surface images at pixel resolutions of 24 miles (40 kilometers) to 1,250 feet (400 meters).

The images juggle LORRI’s snapping pictures every three seconds with Ralph’s scanning surfaces.

Pictorial sequences knit together a 50-mile- (80-kilometer-) wide strip of icy geological features at resolutions of 250 to 280 feet (77 to 85 meters) per pixel.

Revelations of features sized less than half one city block link the informally named al-Idrisi mountains and Sputnik Planum with the rubbly material of crumpled ridges. New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, mentions: “The science we can do with these images is simply unbelievable.” Geology, Geophysics and Imaging deputy lead William McKinnon of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, notes: “Looking into Pluto’s depths is looking back into geologic time.”

The sequence offers the latest data transmitted weekly from New Horizons’ digital recorders.

Icy, rugged plains full of craters with interior, layered walls prompt Dr. McKinnon’s describing impact craters as “nature’s drill rigs” critical to reconstructing Pluto’s geological history.

The sculptured deposition, erosion, faulting and tumbling of craters, mountains, plains, ridges and shorelines qualify Pluto’s surface geography for the NASA description of a badlands-reminiscent topography.  The meeting place of the ice dwarf planet’s mountains, ridges and shorelines remains one of the most potentially informative of Pluto’s past and present geological processes. John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute says: “[M]ountains are huge ice blocks that have been jostled and tumbled and somehow transported to their present locations.”

New Horizons flyby past Pluto weeklies tell NASA the ice dwarf's darkest secrets.

craters mostly lying within 155-mile (250-kilometer)-wide Burney Basin, whose outer rim forms hills or low mountains at bottom; highest-resolution image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveals layering in craters' interior walls (large crater, upper right); credit NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States, via NASA

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Informally named al-Idrisi Mountains end abruptly at shoreline of informally named Sputnik Planum; highest-resolution image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveals great blocks of Pluto’s water-ice crust appear jammed together in the mountains; credit NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States, via NASA @ http://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-returns-first-of-the-best-images-of-pluto

craters mostly lying within 155-mile (250-kilometer)-wide Burney Basin, whose outer rim forms hills or low mountains at bottom; highest-resolution image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveals layering in craters' interior walls (large crater, upper right); credit NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States, via NASA @ http://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-returns-first-of-the-best-images-of-pluto

For further information:

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 November 2015. "Ice Volcanoes May Erupt Ammonia, Methane, Nitrogen or Water on Pluto." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/11/ice-volcanoes-may-erupt-ammonia-methane.html

NASA @NASA. 4 December 2015. "You've never seen Pluto like this! @NASANewHorizons returns sharpest views yet! Take a look." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/NASA/status/672949277082165248

NASA.gov Video. 4 December 2015. "New Horizons' Best View of Pluto's Craters, Mountains and Icy Plains." YouTube.
Available @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0xkupKwjfM

Staff Writers. 5 December 2015. “Pluto Surface Details Revealed in Best Images Yet.” Space Daily > Outer Planets.
Available @ http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Pluto_surface_details_revealed_in_best_images_yet_999.html

Talbert, Tricia. 4 December 2015. “New Horizons Returns First of the Best Images of Pluto.” NASA > New Horizons.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-returns-first-of-the-best-images-of-pluto