New images from NASA Pluto surprise – La Prensa of Honduras

Florida, United States

New, more detailed images of Pluto passed in recent days by the New Horizons spacecraft reveal a bewildering diversity and complexity of relief, never previously observed in the solar system, according to NASA scientists.

“If an artist had represented before the Pluto flyby -for our part of New Horizons, which achieved its closest approach to the dwarf planet 14 July- probably would have thought I was hallucinating. But that’s the reality, “said lead mission scientist Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).

” Pluto shows us a variety of reliefs and complexity of geological formations ever seen in the solar system, “he added in a statement.

Geologically” Pluto’s surface is as complex as that of Mars “, estimated to turn geologist Jeff Moore, a member of the mission.

The latest images show what appear to be solid dunes and roads nitrogen highlands descend into a valley network.

These snapshots, which more than doubled the visible surface of Pluto, also reveal vast mountainous areas with a chaotic relief that recalls parts of Europe, or one of the icy moons of Jupiter.

They could be huge blocks of ice floating in a denser solid nitrogen vast repository located on a plateau named “Sputnik Planum”.

The mystery of the dunes

These new Pluto images show parts with the highest density of craters ever seen so far on the planet, near frozen plains, most recent geological and have almost no craters.

“If indeed what we were dunes Pluto would be really surprising as the dwarf planet’s atmosphere is too thin to produce winds, “said Bill McKinnon of Washington University in St Louis, one of the scientists responsible for the mission.

“O Pluto had a denser atmosphere in the past, or other processes are underway do not know; It is a puzzle, “he said.

The new images also reveal that atmospheric vapors around Pluto, which rise up to 130 kilometers altitude, consist of more layers than scientists thought.

The fog surrounding the plans to create a glow faintly illuminates the surface at sunset approaches, which became visible in the sun to Pluto New Horizons cameras.

The probe began sending to Earth new images and other data from the planet in early September. This transmission process will continue until the end of 2016, due to the distance that separates us from the probe, which is currently almost 5,000 million kilometers Earth.

New Horizons is currently more than 12.5 million kilometers of Pluto and immersed in the Kuiper Belt, the wide ring of debris surrounding the solar system.

The NASA recently selected a new potential target to scan the probe after its historic flyby of Pluto in July: it is a small object in the Kuiper Belt called “2014 MU69″ nearly 1,600 million kilometers Pluto.

The probe also began broadcasting on Friday three best images of the moons of Pluto, Charon, Nix and Hydra, showing that they are very different.

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