BRENT: Spectacular new photos of Pluto have revealed “majestic” icy mountains, sweeping plains and a low-lying haze over the distant dwarf planet.
Stunned Nasa scientists said the latest images captured by the New Horizons spacecraft showed it to be “surprisingly Earth-like”, with evidence of a process similar to the water cycle.
A view caught of Pluto at sunset on 14 July showed the rugged terrain in sharp relief, with mountains believed to be up to 11,000ft high, flanked by huge plains and glaciers.
They have been named Norgay Montes and Hillary Montes, after mountaineers Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who were the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
“This image really makes you feel you are there, at Pluto, surveying the landscape for yourself,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Dr Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado.
“But this image is also a scientific bonanza, revealing new details about Pluto’s atmosphere, mountains, glaciers and plains.”
The dramatic backlighting and high resolution captured by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera, which photographed the dwarf planet from 11,000 miles away, also reveals new details of hazes throughout Pluto’s “tenuous but extended” nitrogen atmosphere.
More than a dozen wispy layers can be seen stretching from near the ground to at least 60 miles above the surface.
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