Pluto- a dwarf planet, which is smaller than Earth’s Moon. On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its historic flight through the Pluto system – providing the first close-up images of Pluto and its moons. The data from the spacecraft has transformed our understanding of these mysterious worlds on the solar system’s outer frontier.
Recently, NASA took their social media handler Instagram and shared a colorful image of Pluto. The image created by NASA Horizons shows the planet in ‘the psychedelic riot of colors.’ Different colors indicate Pluto’s different regions.
The left side of the planet is mostly blue-green with purple swirls, while the right side ranges from a vibrant yellow-green at the top to a reddish-orange toward the bottom.
Pluto has a complex and varied surface. It is jumbled with mountains as high as the Rockies, networks of carved-out valleys, old, heavily cratered terrain sitting right next to new, smooth icy plains, and wind-blown dunes.
NASA’s officials said, “New Horizons launched on January 19, 2006, and conducted a six-month-long flyby study of Pluto and its moons in summer 2015. The spacecraft continues to explore the distant solar system, heading farther into the Kuiper Belt.”