DizkoverNew Horizons probe captured first colored photo of Pluto
@Cryon
April 16, 2015 ● 472 views
April 16, 2015 ● 472 views
Science
via space.com
The New Horizons probe, which is closing to Pluto, has captured its first colored image of the dwarf planet.
The picture above shows a reddish color accompanied by its biggest moon, Charon.
The New Horizons is nearly five billion km away from Earth. It takes 4.6 hours for radio signal to come back. It is set to past Pluto on 14 July.
It will acquire a mass of data that it will then return to Earth very slowly over the course of the next 16 months.
The New Horizon encounter with Pluto is set to be the major space event of 2015. It will complete the reconnaissance of the "classical nine" planets of our Solar System; New Horizon's flyby will mean every one has been visited at least once by a space probe.
New Horizons spacecraft quick fact
NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft captured this view of the giant planet Neptune and its large moon Triton on July 10, 2014, from a distance of about 2.45 billion miles (3.96 billion kilometers) - more than 26 times the distance between the Earth and sun.
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