EUROPE: The New Horizons team has revealed the first set of scientific findings from Pluto and its moons, based on the data collected by the spacecraft, on Thursday. The results were published in Science Magazine, where a wide range of findings including the diverse range of Pluto’s geological landscape, to Pluto’s complex atmosphere and to its intriguing moons are given.
“The New Horizons mission completes our initial reconnaissance of the solar system, giving humanity our first look at this fascinating world and its system of moons,” commented Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA HQ in Washington.
“New Horizons is not only writing the textbook on the Pluto system, it’s serving to inspire current and future generations to keep exploring – to keep searching for what’s beyond the next hill,” added Green.
The spacecraft reached a distance of 13,691 kilometers (8,507 miles) from Pluto’s surface during its July 14 closest approach, gathering a rich treasure of data that is expected to take another 10 to 12 months to return to Earth.
The spacecraft is currently 5 billion kilometers away from Earth and is set to continue its mission moving further deeper into the Kuiper belt.
The data that has been returned and analyzed by scientists so far show a surprisingly diverse range of variety of the landscape and terrain ages on Pluto, as well as significant variations in color, composition and albedo (surface reflectivity).
“We knew Pluto’s surface was heterogeneous based on ground-based data. However, I was astonished to see such spectacular surface color and geological diversity,” commented Protopapa, an assistant research scientist in astronomy at UMD.
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