A look at Pluto
January 18th 2008 06:30
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Pluto surface appears to mostly light brown in colour. This picture captures the true colors of Pluto as well as the highest surface resolution so far recovered.
No spacecraft has yet visited this most distant dwarf planet in our Solar System. It has a moon Charon. Pluto's brown color is thought dominated by frozen methane deposits metamorphosed by faint but energetic sunlight. The dark band below Pluto's equator is seen to have rather complex colouring, however, indicating that some unknown trigger may have affected Pluto's surface.
Images taken with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Faint Object Camera (FOC) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface, as Pluto rotated on its axis in late June and early July 1994.
This is the clearest view yet of the distant dwarf planet Pluto and its moon, Charon, as revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The image was taken by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on February 21, 1994 when the dwarf planet was 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) from Earth almost 30 times the separation between Earth and the sun.
Hubble's corrected optics show the two objects as clearly separate and sharp disks. This now allows astronomers to measure directly (to within about 1 percent) Pluto's diameter of 2320 kilometers and Charon's diameter of 1270 kilometers.
The Hubble observations show that Charon is bluer than Pluto. This means that both worlds have different surface composition and structure. A bright highlight on Pluto suggests it has a smoothly reflecting surface layer.
A detailed analysis of the Hubble image also suggests there is a bright area parallel to the equator on Pluto. This result is consistent with surface brightness models based on previous ground-based photometric observations. However, subsequent HST observations will be required to confirm whether the feature is real.
Though Pluto was discovered in 1930, Charon wasn't detected until 1978. That is because the moon is so close to Pluto that the two worlds are typically blended together when viewed through ground-based telescopes.
Pluto typically is called the double dwarf planet because Charon is half the diameter of Pluto (our Moon is one-quarter the diameter of Earth.
Hubble image showing some possible surface features
No spacecraft has yet visited this most distant dwarf planet in our Solar System. It has a moon Charon. Pluto's brown color is thought dominated by frozen methane deposits metamorphosed by faint but energetic sunlight. The dark band below Pluto's equator is seen to have rather complex colouring, however, indicating that some unknown trigger may have affected Pluto's surface.
Hubble mapping image of Pluto surface
This is the clearest view yet of the distant dwarf planet Pluto and its moon, Charon, as revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The image was taken by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on February 21, 1994 when the dwarf planet was 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) from Earth almost 30 times the separation between Earth and the sun.
Hubble's corrected optics show the two objects as clearly separate and sharp disks. This now allows astronomers to measure directly (to within about 1 percent) Pluto's diameter of 2320 kilometers and Charon's diameter of 1270 kilometers.
The Hubble observations show that Charon is bluer than Pluto. This means that both worlds have different surface composition and structure. A bright highlight on Pluto suggests it has a smoothly reflecting surface layer.
Pluto with moon Charon (Hubble image)
A detailed analysis of the Hubble image also suggests there is a bright area parallel to the equator on Pluto. This result is consistent with surface brightness models based on previous ground-based photometric observations. However, subsequent HST observations will be required to confirm whether the feature is real.
Though Pluto was discovered in 1930, Charon wasn't detected until 1978. That is because the moon is so close to Pluto that the two worlds are typically blended together when viewed through ground-based telescopes.
Pluto typically is called the double dwarf planet because Charon is half the diameter of Pluto (our Moon is one-quarter the diameter of Earth.
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