Thousands of Pits Punctuate Pluto’s Forbidding Plains in Latest Photos

(Before It's News)

Rows of small pits pockmark the ice in Sputnik Planum on Pluto in this latest photo returned by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft shortly before closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015. Could these divots be caused by sublimating nitrogen ice? It resolves details as small as 270 yards (250 meters) and the scene is about 130 miles (210 km) across. Click on this and all the images for high resolution views.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

A brand new batch of Pluto and Charon photos showed up today on the New Horizons LORRI (LOng-Range Reconnaissance Imager) site. The photos were taken during the close flyby of the system on July 14, 2015 and show rich detail including craters and parallel cracks on Charon and thousands of small pits punctuating Pluto’s nitrogen ice landscape. Have at ’em!(…)
Read the rest of Thousands of Pits Punctuate Pluto’s Forbidding Plains in Latest Photos (416 words)

© Bob King for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Charon, lorri, New Horizons, Pluto

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