NASA continues to publish more new photos of Pluto

The US Aerospace Agency (NASA) has just announced the latest images taken from the New Horizons spacecraft that are being sent in the exploration mission at Pluto.

Add the latest images of Pluto

About 15 minutes after New Horizons was at the closest distance to the dwarf planet, this probe captured a special panorama. The photo with a width of 1255km has partly revealed the rough terrain on the surface of Pluto.

The latest images of Pluto's surface have shocked scientists. On the surface of the dwarf planet, there exist not only majestic glaciers, but also glaciers that are flooded with solid and foggy nitrogen in the lower levels. Not to mention the northern region of this celestial body also has many very different points.

Scientist Will Grundy from Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, said that the layer of smog moving above the surface is nearly 100km high as nitrogen gas, and the weather cycle on the asteroid also has The similarity with the Earth.

According to scientist Alan Stern, who led NASA's New Horizons mission, said: "This image really makes people feel like they are on Pluto itself and survey the surrounding landscape. . But this picture is also a blessing for scientists, because it revealed new details about Pluto's atmosphere, mountains, glaciers and plains. "

The picture shows Pluto having a hydrological cycle similar to Earth. In which water evaporates from the surface will fly into the air then fall into rain. But instead of water, the mission team New Horizons thinks nitrogen has created this phenomenon on the small planet.

To the right of the center of the dwarf planet, formerly Sputnik Planum , nitrogen evaporated ice blocks appeared from the plains and the surface layer was expanded areas.

Another close-up image shows that glaciers have slipped from the area covered by nitrogen gas (right) through a narrow valley (red arrow) and into the plain of Sputnik Planum ( blue arrow on the left). These characteristics are quite similar to the glacier streams stretching around large ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.

The ice seems to have been created since frozen nitrogen accumulated on the high mountains on the right side of this 630km-wide image.

New Horizon will continue to send the latest images of this special asteroid in the near future. Hopefully, the public will be able to admire more images of geological structure and the remaining dark areas of Pluto.