New Horizons sent a snapshot of a likely cryovolcano on Pluto

Photo: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI

The New Horizons probe recently sent a high-quality image of the surface of Pluto, taken on July 14 last year. The distance at that time from the station to the planetoid surface was 48 thousand kilometers. The picture was taken using tools such as LORRI (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) and MVIC (Ralph / Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera).

Scientists believe that the cryovolcano may be visible in the picture. It is located in a region called Wright Mons. This terrain extends for about 150 kilometers, and its height is 4 kilometers. If this is really what it seems, then on Pluto it was possible to find the largest cryovolcano at the outer borders of the solar system.

Experts studying photography were surprisedunusual distribution of red material - it is not enough, and it is not located evenly on the surface. In addition, there is only one impact crater, which may indicate that the surface is relatively young. Other impact craters may have been filled with the ejected cryovolcano.



Recently, the station transmittedadditional pluto shots of high quality. They can distinguish structural features of the surface of the planetoid. The image came to Earth on December 24, after about 5 months from the moment of the flight of the New Horizons spacecraft at a distance of 12.5 thousand kilometers from Pluto. Information will be transmitted continuously until August 2016 or longer. This duration is due to the large amount of accumulated information and the low bandwidth of the New Horizons - Earth communication channels.



Now New Horizons is gradually moving away from Pluto. The main task of the station now is to approach the 2014 MU69 object. This planetoid is located at a distance of more than 1.6 billion kilometers from Pluto. The station should reach its destination by 2019.