Search Here

Surely, you don't think of the remote planet Pluto as a colourful one---yet. However, NASA's new "false color image" that brings out the "subtle but distinct regions" of Pluto leaves you quite awed over its stunning psychedelics, according to HNGN. The "principal component analysis" technique was employed for it.

The information for the image was gathered from 22,000 miles away. The main action was by the New Horizons  spacecraft's Ralph/MVIC color camera on July 14 at 11:11 AM UTC.

Will Grundy, a member of the New Horizons' surface composition team made the image. He presented it at the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in National Harbor, Maryland.

Another image by New Horizons included the region in the east as well as the northeast of Pluto's "heart" (Tombaugh Region). It will enable NASA scientists to enhance their maps of the dwarf planet's areas, which include its north pole as well as significant dark spots at the bottom of the image, called Krun Macula.

It was on Jan 19, 2006, that the spacecraft New Horizons was launched. It went by Jupiter and then reached Pluto.

Once NASA approves of an extension of the spacecraft, it may move further into the mysterious Kuiper belt, which would give an insight into the enigmatic birth of the solar system.

"The New Horizons mission is helping us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of the dwarf planet Pluto and by venturing deeper into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt - a relic of solar system formation," NASA stated on their website.