Pluto Shows Its Principal Colors in This Psychedelic Shot

“Think of it like turning the contrast way up, but scientifically”, NBC News reported. The exaggerated colors make it easy for scientists to determine the varied texture and composition of Pluto’s surface. The closest we’ve gotten to a “wow” technicolor-style image is one that presents Pluto in enhanced color, giving it a rich dark-reddish tint.

Using a technique called principal component analysis, New Horizons scientists created this false color image of Pluto to highlight the many subtle color differences between Pluto’s distinct regions.

If not, NASA has a special treat for you – a stunning psychedelic image of the dwarf planet.

The out-of-this-world image was taken by the New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, while traveling about 22,000 miles away from Pluto.

“Pluto and its system of moons have really outsmarted us”, team leader Alan Stern told a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences in National Harbor, Maryland, on 9 November. It’s possible that, if these mountains are ice volcanoes, they could have helped to reshape the dwarf planet’s surface in the relatively recent geological past.

“Whatever there are, they’re definitely weird, and volcanoes are probably the least weird explanation at the moment”, says New Horizons team member Oliver White. “Whatever they are, they’re definitely weird”, he added.

NASA explained that cyrovolcanoes or ice volcanoes would erupt with methane, ammonia, nitrogen or water ice.