NASA has described Pluto’s surface as cracked and cratered, colored white, tan and brownish-red
On Saturday, NASA shared a stunning image taken by its New Horizons spacecraft on Instagram, showing Pluto’s true colors. The image, taken at a distance of 22,025 miles (35,445 km) from Pluto, also shows its ‘heart’ – a massive glacier made of nitrogen and methane. Pluto’s surface is covered in ice made of water, methane and nitrogen and is believed to have a rocky core and possibly a deep ocean.
NASA has described Pluto’s surface as cracked and cratered, colored white, tan and brownish-red. As the white and tan descend at the top of the image to meet the brownish-red surface, a partially visible “heart” of white appears.
The space agency shared the image of Pluto and captioned it, “Minor Planetary Body Saturday? Taken by our New Horizons spacecraft at a distance of 22,025 miles (35,445 km), this image shows Pluto’s “heart” in true color. The dwarf planet — with nitrogen and methane. Formed glaciers the size of Texas and Oklahoma.
Check out the picture here:
Orbiting at a distance of 3.7 billion miles (5.9 billion km), New Horizons is the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and is expected to explore the Kuiper Belt – a region believed to be full of small objects left over from our creation. Solar system, NASA said.
Pluto was once considered the ninth planet in the solar system, however, it was demoted in 2006 and reclassified as a dwarf planet. International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgraded Pluto to a dwarf planet because it did not meet the three criteria used by the IAU to define a full-sized planet. A “dwarf planet,” as defined by the IAU, is a cosmic object in direct orbit of the Sun that is massive enough that its shape is governed by gravitational rather than mechanical forces but has not cleared neighboring regions of other objects.
Pluto is just over 1,400 miles across (2,250 km) wide, about half the width of the United States or 2/3 the width of the Moon. Its average temperature is -387F (-232C) – Pluto’s surface is covered in ice made of water, methane and nitrogen and is believed to have a rocky core and possibly a deep ocean.
According to Space.Com, another distinctive feature of Pluto’s surface is a large heart-shaped region known informally as the Tombaugh Regio. To the left of the region (an area shaped like an ice cream cone) is carbon monoxide ice. Other variations have been identified in the composition of surface elements within Pluto’s “heart”.
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