NASA Will Soon Release The First Global Maps Of Pluto And Its Moon Charon To The Public
Although Pluto is no longer the ninth planet in our solar system, it is still the subject of in-depth research, thanks to the efforts of NASA and its New Horizons team. And with the New Horizons spacecraft still gathering information on the dwarf planet and its surroundings, the team behind the mission recently published high-resolution global and topographic maps of Pluto and its moon Charon, and will soon be releasing these maps to the public.
According to a report from Popular Mechanics, the main purpose of the maps is to “help complete” the broader objective of the New Horizons mission, which is to provide astronomers with a clearer understanding of the object that was, for several decades, part of our solar system until it was reclassified as a dwarf planet. The data was reportedly gathered by several New Horizons instruments, including the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), a telescope that acts like a digital camera that could survive the extreme cold weather of Pluto and Charon thanks to its outsized telephoto lens.
For a two-year period from 2015 to 2017, LORRI and its suite of smaller instruments snapped photos of Pluto and its moons, relaying the data back to earthbound researchers for more detailed analysis. This was a long and painstaking process that also required the surface features on multiple overlapping images to line up with each other, as Popular Mechanics further noted,
“This was one of the most complex yet most exciting planetary mapping projects I’ve had the pleasure to be involved with. Every time new images came down, something new would be revealed,” read a statement from New Horizons researcher Paul Schenk.
The newly published maps stand out for detailing Pluto and Charon’s geographical features like never before, allowing viewers to enjoy crisp and clear views of areas like the Sputnik Planitia, which is the lowest known part of Pluto’s surface, a 625-mile sheet of frozen nitrogen that measures about 1.5 miles thick on average, and the Tenzing Montes, the dwarf planet’s tallest mountain range and a tribute to legendary mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, who, together with Edmund Hillary, reached the top of Mt. Everest in 1953.
Pluto and Charon Shine in Most Detailed Topographical Maps Ever https://t.co/LxHk0DVCEG pic.twitter.com/h5AaQwx1Ig
— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) July 12, 2018
As for Charon, Popular Mechanics noted highlights such as its 8.7-mile-deep depressions, which are even deeper than the Marianas Trench, and its so-called cryovolcanoes, or volcanoes that spew out frozen water, methane, or other gases or substances, instead of the usual molten lava.
According to a report from SyFy Wire, one interesting quirk regarding the maps is the fact that they have a variable resolution, which is a result of the sheer speed in which New Horizons flew by both Pluto and Charon. Due to this, the spacecraft was able to see only one half of each object at a time, with some parts more visible than others. Still, the publication noted that Pluto’s extremely thin atmosphere illuminated part of the dwarf planet’s night side, making close to 80 percent of its surface visible.
The maps of Pluto and Charon are currently available at NASA’s Planetary Data System website, and will soon be launched for general public viewing, though no exact date or date range was specified by Popular Mechanics.
