Go the distance:

⁣The first spacecraft to study Pluto up close – New Horizons – captured this image in blue, red, and infrared colors to help scientists distinguish Pluto's complex geological and climatological story. New Horizons launched in 2006 and arrived in Pluto's system in 2015, capturing images of Pluto and its moons before heading out further into the Kuiper Belt to study our solar system's beginning.⁣

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Evidence from New Horizons suggests that Pluto's surface, marked with craters, mountains, plains, and valleys, is being reshaped due to tectonic forces. Mountains on Pluto can reach as high as 6,500 to 9,800 ft (2-3 km), made of water ice and a thin sheen of frozen gasses. ⁣

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Image description: Craters and cracks etch the surface of Pluto which appears in deep red, white, tan, light blue, and orange. Black space surrounds the dwarf planet.⁣

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Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute⁣

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22 November  2023