NASA announced another Pluto image captured by the spacecraft New Horizons. This time, the photographs show the mountainous surface of the planet during twilight.
The pictures were taken minutes after the sun goes down. You can still see some solar rays that illuminate the ice mountains 3,000 meters high.
Images They were taken to 18,000 kilometers of Pluto, when the spacecraft approached the surface of the dwarf planet on 14 juilho. This is just one of the many photographs taken by the space probe. New Horizons has captured so much information that will be needed at least 18 months so that all the material reaches the Earth.
NASA scientists said that these new images reveal new details of the planet’s surface.
“Pluto is showing us a variety of plains and complexity of processes that rival anything we have seen in the solar system,” said Alan Stern, researcher main mission. “If a Pluto painter sketched before our passage would probably seem exaggerated – but that’s what’s really there”
New features were revealed this week by researchers: there is a possibility there. dunes on the planet and cold nitrogen flows coming out of the mountains.
According to experts, the size of mountains encountered and the complexity of its surface are reminiscent of the natural satellite of Jupiter, Europa.
“The mountains can be large blocks of ice, composed of water, floating with over a vast and dense cold nitrogen tank,” said Moffett Field, NASA.
Scientists still say that these images can help map the geological history of the planet, since the presence of dunes is confirmed, could mean that the atmosphere on Pluto has been less dense.
“This caught Twilight is a bonus, a magnificent gift of Pluto given us. Now we geology on land that never waited to see. “
The dwarf planet was the first to be visited by a mission from Earth. The New Horizons probe will continue to space adventure by exploring other space objects in the Kuiper belt.
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