New Horizons Spots Two Distinct Faces Of Pluto

As New Horizons approaches the planet, the team is starting to look for more detailed features.

As per experts, the reason for which scientists are finding it hard to track the exact location of the dwarf planet is its distance from the Sunday. Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute said the images also show dark patches, but it is not known for now what the spots are.

The latest LORRI images clearly show Pluto and all five its moons, and a lack of any previously unknown dangers in New Horizons’ path. The images would have revealed moons up to 15 times dimmer than the faintest of the visible moons, Styx. But it is finally homing in on its ultimate destination.

The study of methane on Pluto will provide us with more clues as to the composition of the nebula from which our sun and the planets were born from 4.5 billion years ago.

On July 14 the spacecraft will make its closest approach to the dwarf planet, flying within 7,700 miles of the surface.

There is expectation that the probe will scream past the dwarf world on 14 July at nearly 14km/s and at an altitude of just 12,500km and this will lead to New Horizons’ 23-second thruster burn adjusting its speed and arrival time very slightly.

Note the contrast between Pluto’s bright northern hemisphere and a dark band of material near its equator.

Engineers announced yesterday that no further course correction would be required to steer New Horizons clear of debris. We live in the inner zone, the realm of rocky planets: Earth, Venus, Mercury and Mars.

Consequently, with the New Horizons spacecraft nearing Pluto, the astronomical community hasn’t been as excited as this since August 1989, when we enthusiastically waited for the Voyager 2 spacecraft to give us our first detailed view of Neptune.

Pluto was discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and was christened planet No. 9 in our solar system. As for Charon, the images paint the moon as having a dark polar region, with variations in brightness at lower latitudes. And just two weeks before NASA’s New Horizons scheduled flyby, it detected frozen methane, a substance scientists had long suspected to exist, The Christian Science Monitor said.

Soon, we will know if there are differences in the presence of methane ice from one part of Pluto to another, he added in a statement.