CANADA: NASA launched New Horizons in 2006 with an aim to study Pluto. Since then, the spacecraft has sent thousands of images to tell people how exactly the dwarf planet looks. Now, NASA has unveiled three mosaics of Pluto and its moon Charon.
To make the mosaics, the US space agency used a number of images sent by people across the world. These people are members of NASA’s Pluto Time campaign. The members collected photos by encouraging space enthusiasts to click pictures when outside environment in their regions is matching Pluto’s lighting conditions.
NASA also developed a web tool, Pluto Time, to tell members the appropriate time to go outside and click some pictures. While providing details of the tool, Alex Parker, New Horizons scientist, said the tool was built with an objective to tell space fans when the light levels around them could drop to Pluto levels.
“We looked up tables of illumination levels during various stages of twilight – used to determine when streetlights come on and such – and determined how low the sun would need to be on a clear day to match Pluto”, said Parker in a statement.
In July this year, New Horizons of NASA made its closest approach with the dwarf planet. Since then, the probe has beamed back images and data about Pluto. According to NASA, the mission is the first to study the dwarf planet from a close range.
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