REAL LIFE NEWS: PLUTO’S SURFACE UP CLOSE
by Hazed
New Horizons has now sent back some extremely hi-res, super-sharp images of Pluto, taken during its fly-by in July. They are at a resolution of better than 80m per pixel.
The images show mountains, craters and smooth ice fields, all highly detailed. Click the source links below to take a look.
“These close-up images, showing the diversity of terrain on Pluto, demonstrate the power of our robotic planetary explorers to return intriguing data to scientists back here on Planet Earth,” said John Grunsfeld, the head of Nasa’s science directorate.
“New Horizons thrilled us during the July flyby with the first close images of Pluto, and as the spacecraft transmits the treasure trove of images in its onboard memory back to us, we continue to be amazed by what we see.”
The mission team elected to get general pictures giving a broad context sent back first, and now we’re getting the highly detailed images. It’s going to take at least another year for the probe to transmit all of its info back to Earth, because of the low bandwidth available. No superfast broadband in space!
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35013190
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-close-up-now-in-color
