NASA experts have begun to map the surface of Pluto on the basis of images obtained from the machine New Horizons from June 27 to July 3, according to the online the agency. Map you can download and view in Google Earth.
The map will allow scientists to decipher the complex and intricate pattern of light and dark areas on the surface of Pluto. One of the darkest areas, received an informal title of “Whale”, stretched about 3,000 kilometers along the equator.
To the right of the head “China” is one of the bright areas, which has a width of about 1,600 km. Probably, it is covered with deposits of frozen methane, nitrogen or carbon monoxide.
Further to the right along the equator are four mysterious dark spots, puzzled scientists. Each of them has hundreds of kilometers wide. To the left of the whale, near its tail is a bright area in the donut-shaped width of about 350 km. At first glance, it looks like the crater of a meteorite or volcanic eruption – like formations are found throughout the solar system. However, scientists are not in a hurry to draw conclusions until a clearer picture.
July 14 New Horizons will approach Pluto at a distance of 12,500 km. The device is fully recovered after a short failure on Saturday, July 4, reports BBC . It was lost little information – less than 1% of the data are of great scientific importance.
The machine New Horizons was launched on 19 January 2006 and has since crossed about 5 billion kilometers. During this time, its rate nine times adjusted. Its main objective – the study of Pluto and its moons, Charon, Hydra nobody. After that, New Horizons will continue its mission and will travel to other objects in the Kuiper belt. In this area, located beyond the orbit of Neptune, are tens of thousands of small celestial bodies, mainly comets and dwarf planets.
Pluto is the largest of all the objects in the Kuiper Belt known to astronomers. It was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, the American scientist and was considered the ninth planet full of the solar system, while in 2006, the International Astronomical Congress after a heated debate has not announced his dwarf planet. The diameter of Pluto – about 3 thousand. Km, it is smaller than the Moon.
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