Latest photos by New Horizons Probe show Pluto’s atmosphere, surface features

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LONDON: NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is the gift that keeps on giving. After completing a historic flyby of Pluto on July 14, the spacecraft continues to provide scientists with never-before-seen views of Pluto and its five moons as well as incredible data packets. Last Friday, the spacecraft left us with some amazing science data to digest and a hauntingly beautiful view of Pluto backlit by the Sun.
Transmitting data’s slow in part due to the vast distance between the Earth and New Horizons, but the probe also has to share its “talking time” with NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN)—a special worldwide network of large antennas designed to support interplanetary missions. As a result, scientists cannot download all the data on board New Horizons at one time. Over the next few weeks, mostly engineering data will be beamed back, so this is the last of the new images we’ll see for a while.
Scientists have known for years that Pluto has an atmosphere but have never been able to directly observe it. The first detection of Pluto’s atmosphere came in 1988 during a stellar occultation—meaning Pluto passed between the Earth and a distant star, blocking out the star’s light and allowing scientists to gather data. If Pluto had an atmosphere, the light from the star would gradually fade versus being suddenly blocked out.
Thanks to New Horizons, scientists have their first direct observation of Pluto’s atmosphere and it is glorious. Just after closest approach on July 14, the spacecraft turned around, pointing its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) back towards the Earth. In doing so, LORRI revealed Pluto’s atmosphere as sunlight streamed through it. “My jaw was on the ground when I saw this first image of an alien atmosphere in the Kuiper Belt,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute. “It reminds us that exploration brings us more than just incredible discoveries—it brings incredible beauty.”