True Colours of the Pluto Charon system
To mark the third anniversary of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, encounter with Pluto and it companion Charon, mission scientists have produced the most accurate colour view yet of the dwarf planet and its large moon Charon, these images depicts these far away worlds are they would appear to an astronaut’s eyes.
Scientists are still revealing the wonders of these incredible worlds in the outer solar system. These natural-colour images result from refined calibration of data gathered by New Horizons' colour Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The processing creates images that would approximate the colours that the human eye would perceive, bringing them closer to “true colour” than the images released near the encounter. Said Alex Parker, a New Horizons science team co-investigator from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
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Pluto, as the human eye would see it. Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker
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This image was taken as New Horizons zipped toward Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015, from a range of 35,445 kilometres. This single colour MVIC scan includes no data from other New Horizons imagers or instruments added. The striking features on Pluto are clearly visible, including the bright expanse of Pluto's icy, nitrogen-and-methane rich "heart," Sputnik Planitia.
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Pluto’s large
moon Charon, about half the size of the dwarf planet, in true-colour format. Image:
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research
Institute/Alex Parker
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This image was taken on July 14, 2015, from a range of 74,176 kilometres. This single colour MVIC scan includes no data from other New Horizons imagers or instruments added. The striking features on Charon are clearly visible, including the reddish north-polar region known as Mordor Macula.
Credit: Astronomy Now, Wikipedia, NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker
