The rapprochement of the New Horizons automaticinterplanetarystation(“NewHorizons”)withPluto (up to 12.5thousandkm)took place onJuly 14, 2015(seethe TRV-scienceNo. 183-184 ),butthe transmissionof imageswithmaximumresolutionwas stopped on July20andresumedonly onSeptember 5.NoweveryweekNASApleasesus with anotherportion ofamazingphotos.It is assumedthat 50gigabitsof the collectedinformationwill betransmitted (ataverylowspeed of 1-2kilobitspersecond)atleastuntiltheendof2016.
Pluto. Photo by NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
New photos demonstrate the variety of landscapes on the dwarf planet and prove that Pluto cannot be considered a dead object on which no changes occur. Color images are obtained by combining pictures in blue, red rays, as well as infrared radiation data from the multi -specific chamber "Ralph). The surface of Pluto is painted in pastel colors-starting from pale blue, yellow and orange shades to burgundy "fillings". Many relief details are painted in their own individual colors, which allows you to trace the complex geological and climatological story of the Lord of the Underground World. In color pictures, the details are distinguishable 1.3 km.
1. This species Pluto would have from a height of 1800 km above the equator, if you look at its northeastern part. The dark plot below with craters is unofficially called the Ktulhu Regio region, and the bright ice surface at the top - the plain of the satellite (Sputnik Planum) - in honor of the first Soviet satellite. All photos in width occupies 1800 km. The pictures were taken during the flight on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 80 thousand km. 2. In the center of this photo 470 km wide-an extremely crossed area on the northwestern outskirts of the vast ice plain of the satellite. The smallest details are 0.8 km in size. 3. This 350-kilometer type of Pluto from New Horizons demonstrates an incredible variety of surface reflection coefficients and geological forms of relief on a dwarf planet. The image includes both the dark ancient, highly scooted areas and bright smooth geologically young intersperses, as well as mountain massifs and mysterious dark rounded hills resembling earthly dunes. Their origin remains the subject of discussions. Of course, with the current almost ephemeral atmosphere, the dunes who are familiar to us cannot form, but Pluto could have a more or less dense atmosphere in the past, or some other processes unknown to us are responsible for the appearance of “dunes”. The smallest objects visible here are 0.8 km in size. 4. This is the highest quality image of the largest satellite of Pluto Haron. Haron (its diameter is 1200 km, which is half the Pluto itself) reveals an amazingly complex geological story, including tectonic faults, relatively smooth plains, scratches, so far obscure relief features and largely crazy regions in the center and upper left side of the disk. There are also intricate patterns on the reflecting surface of Haron, including bright and dark rays diverging from craters, and the mysterious reddish spot of Mordor (Mordor Macula) in the spacecraft in the upper part of the picture. The smallest visible objects reach 0.8 km in the diameter. 5. This is a Pluto image from New Horizons, processed in two different ways, demonstrates an amazing phenomenon for such a lifeless celestial body - a dusk generated by a soft glow of atmospheric haze, which illuminates the surface between sunset and sunrise and allows the sensitive chambers of the New Horizons to make out the parts of the relief in the night regions that would have remained different for us, which remains different for us invisible. The right version of the image is significantly “lit” to be revealed by inconspicuous topographic details behind the line of the terminator (lines separating day and night). The picture was taken on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 80 thousand km. 6. Images of the atmospheric haze around Pluto, obtained from the back of it, almost 16 hours after rapprochement - from a distance of 770 thousand km with a phase angle of 166 °. The north of Pluto is on top, and the sun illuminates the dwarf planet from the right upper corner. Pictures are much higher in quality than released shortly after July 14, which allows you to make out new details. It should be noted that the left version was subjected only to minor processing, while the right version is specially processed so as to identify a large number of discrete layers of atmospheric haze. In the left version in the upper right corner of Pluto’s disc, some surface details can be seen through the haze of the haze narrow by the sun, and barely noticeable parallel stripes can turn out to be twilight shadows. A similar game of shadows is observed in earthly skies after sunset in the mountains. 7. Majestic mountains, frozen valleys and hammers. So Pluto appeared from the side of the “new horizons” 15 minutes after the minimum approach on July 14, 2015. The sun was left behind, at sunset, creating this scene full of drama. The ice plane of the satellite is visible on the right, it is surrounded in the west (left) with rocky peaks up to 3.5 km high, including the mountains of Norgee in the foreground (named after the Nepalsky Sherpa Tenzing Norgei, who conquered Everest in 1953) and Hillary on the horizon (in honor of the New Zealander, Edmund Hillari, ascended to Everest along with Norgee; On the right, east of the plain plain, glaciers are grouped. You can also distinguish more than a dozen layers of haze in a sparse atmosphere at the top. The picture is taken from a distance of 18 thousand km, it takes 1250 km wide. 8. In the next photo, a fragment of the same picture on an increased scale. 9. On this combined color image - producing a very strange impression rounded and bizarrely textured mountains, unofficially called Tartar Dors. This is something like a dragon’s skin: gray-blue ridges plus reddish material between them. On the right is the terminator. This fragment 530 km wide combines blue, red and infrared images obtained on July 14 with the help of multi -pointral Ralph (transferred to Earth on September 19). Resolution - 1.3 km. 10. This cylindrical projection of Pluto with additional colors is the most detailed Pluto color map at the moment. She uses the colors obtained using the Ralph camera, which are superimposed on top of the base card from the long-range reconnaissance camera Lorri (Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager) with a resolution of 5 microlytes. Of course, the card can be increased to identify details valuable for science. 11. Images with high resolution allow you to distinguish between features of 250 m on the altel plain, including craters, low ridges and faults. The color was added from the global color image. In total, this fragment takes a width of 530 km. It can be seen that in fact the “ripples” is formed by a thick pattern of pits and ridges. Dunes may also be drawn by sediments of bright flying ice particles that can imitate a “corrugated” pattern after the recycling and subsequent sublimation. 12. Here in this 120-kilometer fragment of the mosaic from the picture above you can see how the textured surface of the plain surrounds the “influx” from two isolated ice mountains. 13. Currently, “New Horizons” are located more than 5 billion km from the Earth and 70 million km from Pluto. All on -board systems work normally. It is assumed that in January 2019, the device will be able to explore another object of the Kuiper belt - 2014 MU69 (this is far from the most interesting and large asteroid of the possible - only 30–45 km on the diameter - it was selected only due to the extremely limited fuel reserve for the correction of the trajectory after the Pluto extend). To achieve a new goal in the coming weeks, four corrections of the “new horizons” trajectories will be made. Five images of 2014 MU69 (indicated by circles) against the background of stars. Pictures received by the Hubble space telescope on June 24, 2014.
MaximBorisov Based onmaterialsfrom NASA
PhotoNASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
