Fly past Pluto: a new video from NASA

Thanks to the New Horizons probe, which began to transmit data accumulated over the previous period of time about two weeks ago, we can now see detailed photographs of the surface of Pluto. Scientists have already found out that Pluto is far from dead, certain processes are taking place in its depths and on the surface, allowing, for example, huge masses of ice to move.

In addition, experts found out what the surface of Pluto is, the atmosphere of a planetoid was studied, the presence of which turned out to be a big surprise. The other day, NASA uploaded a video made up of high-quality photos of Pluto, which were recently sent by New Horizons station.



The New Horizons interplanetary space station began transmitting all the data accumulated in recent months to Earth on September 5. The system’s digital media now contains several gigabytes of data, which is not so easy to transfer to an object as remote as New Earth. At the same time, it takes about a year to fully load all these digital treasures.

The existence of moving glaciers makes Pluto look like active worlds like Earth or Mars. In addition, scientists have received evidence of the existence of complex organic compounds on Pluto. These are acetylene, ethylene and other substances. New Horizons has already detected traces of the presence of these compounds. It is also interesting that dark ice (mountains) is much older than light areas, and has billions of years. Scientists compare the movement of ice on Pluto with the vertical movement of glaciers on Earth - the behavior of ice is very similar, despite the fact that on Earth ice is frozen water, and on Pluto - frozen gases.

The atmosphere of Pluto is represented by the subtlest haze, which, however, was recorded by the probe. Despite its ephemerality, the atmosphere is divided into layers, which are also clearly visible, especially at an altitude of 50 and 80 km above the surface of a dwarf planet.

About two weeks ago, NASA experts decided where the station would fly after Pluto. This is an object with serial number 2014 MU69, its size is much smaller than that of Pluto. From the 2014 Sun, MU69 is another 1.6 billion kilometers farther than Pluto. According to experts who determined the new destination for New Horizons, 2014 MU69 is a very convenient object, since it will require much less fuel to fly than to fly to other objects from the Kuiper belt. 2014 MU69 has a diameter of about 45 km and an orbital period of 294 years. This object is drawn in an almost circular orbit close to the ecliptic plane at a distance of about 44 a. e. from the sun.