Today the New Horizons team released the first images of Pluto and its largest moon Charon since it entered the approach phase. With the spacecraft still 200 million kilometres from the mysterious dwarf planet, the images show little detail but remind us that the mission is approaching its target. The photos were taken using the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).
“Pluto is finally becoming more than just a pinpoint of light,” said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “LORRI has now resolved Pluto, and the dwarf planet will continue to grow larger and larger in the images as New Horizons spacecraft hurtles toward its targets. The new LORRI images also demonstrate that the camera’s performance is unchanged since it was launched more than nine years ago.”
NASA plan to take hundreds of images over the next few months in order to better judge the distance to Pluto and ensure a safe passage through the system in July 2015. Course corrections, if necessary, will be made on the 10th March.
On the 14th July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft will zip past Pluto and its moons at a speed of 43,000 kph (or 27,000 mph). On its flyby, NASA hopes to take several incredible images which will reveal key properties of Pluto and Charon, particularly the topography and surface compositions of the two bodies. The mission also aims to assess whether Pluto has rings or any additional moons other than the 5 we know of - Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra.
“Pluto is finally becoming more than just a pinpoint of light,” said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “LORRI has now resolved Pluto, and the dwarf planet will continue to grow larger and larger in the images as New Horizons spacecraft hurtles toward its targets. The new LORRI images also demonstrate that the camera’s performance is unchanged since it was launched more than nine years ago.”
NASA plan to take hundreds of images over the next few months in order to better judge the distance to Pluto and ensure a safe passage through the system in July 2015. Course corrections, if necessary, will be made on the 10th March.
On the 14th July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft will zip past Pluto and its moons at a speed of 43,000 kph (or 27,000 mph). On its flyby, NASA hopes to take several incredible images which will reveal key properties of Pluto and Charon, particularly the topography and surface compositions of the two bodies. The mission also aims to assess whether Pluto has rings or any additional moons other than the 5 we know of - Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra.