LONDON: A teaser color image of Pluto was released by NASA on its official Instagram account minutes before New Horizons passed the dwarf planet for its flyby at 12.49 GMT.
It was captured some 476,000 miles away. New Horizons logged in a success and avoided debris, a factor scientists believed had 1 in 10,000 chances to endanger the mission. The mission sent back on earth some amazing shots of the dwarf planet.
Now, you have the opportunity to see what the flyby would have looked like by simply watching a wonderful 16-second video clip, thanks to Björn Jónsson, who used NASA’s photography and some factual information to make the video.
“The time covered is 09.35 to 13.35 (closest approach occurred near 11.50). Pluto’s atmosphere is included and should be fairly realistic from about ten seconds into the animation and to the end. Earlier it is largely just guesswork that can be improved in the future once all data has been downlinked from the spacecraft”, he wrote.
Pluto’s night side is illuminated by the light of its satellite Charon. But it has been exaggerated in the video as it would be only barely visible or not visible at all in reality.
Alan Stern, the mission’s principal investigator, said New Horizons sent many pictures of the dwarf planet four billion miles back to Earth. After analyzing some pictures of Pluto, NASA believes that Pluto has water, as the mountains there are composed of water ice.
Stern said this is the first time when they have got such a robust evidence for presence of water on Pluto.
