A NASA spacecraft captured a day in the life of Pluto and its largest moon
Experience a day in the life of a dwarf planet and its largest moon.
Two new images of Pluto and its biggest moon Charon show the two worlds through the course of a full day, which for them is about 6.4 Earth-days long. The images were released on Friday.
The images of Pluto were taken from July 7 to July 13 by the New Horizons spacecraft at a range of 5 million miles to 400,000 miles, as the dwarf planet rotated in its orbit around the sun, NASA said. (A cosmic body completes its "day" when it makes a full rotation on its axis, i.e. 24 hours on Earth.)
"The more distant images contribute to the view at the 3 o’clock position, with the top of the heart-shaped, informally named Tombaugh Regio slipping out of view, giving way to the side of Pluto that was facing away from New Horizons during its closest approach on July 14," NASA said in a statement.
"The side that New Horizons saw in the most detail –- what the mission team calls the 'encounter hemisphere' –- is at the 6 o’clock position," NASA said.
NASA scientists are planning to use photos like these to learn more about the surface of Pluto, but the pictures do have their limitations. New Horizons only got a somewhat low-resolution look at the dwarf planet's "far side" (the hemisphere facing away from the craft during close approach), so it might be more challenging to draw detailed conclusions from those images.
Charon in a day seen by New Horizons.
Image: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
The same goes for Charon.
The images of Pluto's largest moon combined for this photo were taken when New Horizons made its closest pass from July 7 to 13, NASA said.
"The more distant images contribute to the view at the 9 o’clock position, with few of the signature surface features visible, such as the cratered uplands, canyons, or rolling plains of the informally named Vulcan Planum," NASA said.
Instead, the side New Horizons captured in the greatest detail is at the 12 o'clock position.
Charon isn't Pluto's only moon; four other, smaller bodies also orbit the dwarf planet. Kerberos, Nix, Hydra and Styx are all small, oddly shaped bodies that actually appear to tumble in their paths around Pluto.
