Look at Pluto
This stunning zoom-in from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft highlights the southeastern region of Pluto known as Krun Macula, a dark and rugged highland area that rises about 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) above the surrounding flat plains of Sputnik Planum.
Krun Macula
Krun Macula contains clusters of circular pits, each roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, 20 kilometers (12 miles) wide, and 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) deep, their floors coated in nitrogen ice. Scientists believe these deep features may be the result of surface collapse, though their exact origin remains a mystery.
Pluto captured by New Horizon
In the highly detailed composite image, the grainy top region represents the icy plains, diagonally bordered by the Hummocky marginal plains. The bottom right reveals the rugged Krun Macula highlands, home to the enigmatic pits. The right half of the image was taken just 23 minutes before closest approach, from 15,850 kilometers (9,850 miles) away, while the left half was captured 6 minutes earlier at a distance of 24,900 kilometers (15,480 miles). These views represent the highest and second-highest resolution images of Pluto captured by New Horizons (as of 2017).
The entire scene is colorized using data from the Ralph/MVIC instrument, gathered 45 minutes before the spacecraft’s closest approach.
Image Credit :
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/
Southwest Research Institute