Credit & Copyright: NASA,
JHUAPL,
SwRI,
P. Schenk & J. Blackwell
(LPI);
Music Open
Sea Morning by Puddle of Infinity
Explanation:
What if you could fly over Pluto -- what might you see?
The New Horizons spacecraft did just this in
2015 July
as it shot past the distant world at a speed of about 80,000 kilometers per hour.
Recently, many images from this spectacular passage have been color enhanced and
digitally combined into the
featured
two-minute time-lapse video.
As your journey begins,
light dawns on mountains
thought to be composed of water ice but colored by frozen nitrogen.
Soon, to your right, you see a
flat sea of mostly
solid nitrogen
that has segmented into strange polygons that are thought to have
bubbled up
from a comparatively warm
interior.
Craters and ice mountains are
common sights below.
The video
dims and ends over
terrain dubbed
bladed because it shows
500-meter high ridges separated by kilometer-sized gaps.
Although the robotic
New Horizons spacecraft has too much
momentum
ever to return to
Pluto,
it has now been targeted at Kuiper Belt object
2014 MU 69,
which it should shoot past on New Year's Day 2019.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
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