NASA has released a new photograph of Pluto, taken from the space agency’s interplanetary space probe, New Horizon. The image was taken 15 minutes after the New Horizon’s nearest approach to Pluto. In this new image of Pluto released by NASA, the dwarf planet gives out a striking resemblance to similar photographs of the Earth, taken with the Sun illuminating its sides.
Earlier this year, in September, NASA had shared a few striking images of Pluto. Out of these images, one grabbed the most attention. It was an image which showed Pluto’s crescent lit by the sun, but in an incomplete manner. Thus the wish to see a fully lit Pluto remained unfulfilled.
But this new image is a complete one. The frame captures the entire plutoid (dwarf planet) with its edges glowing in the dark. This is something similar to a back light used in portrait photography.
The photograph also shows the deep hazy layers of the dwarf planet’s atmosphere. A closer look at the photo also reveals the plateaus on the left and stars in the form of streaks of light.
The image was captured by a Multi-spectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) on the New Horizon. The MVIC captured this stunning image of Pluto from a distance of 11,000 miles, which comes to about 18,000 km.
In January this year, the New Horizon completed 9 years in space. The space vessel flew past Pluto on July 15, 2015. It left Earth on January 19, 2006, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
(Featured Image Credit: NASA)
