[meteorite-list] Latest Images of Pluto from New Horizons

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/latest-images-of-pluto-from-new-horizons

Latest Images of Pluto from New Horizons
Last Updated: July 6, 2015
Editor: Tricia Talbert

[Images]

These are the most recent high-resolution views of Pluto sent by NASA's 
New Horizons spacecraft, including one showing the four mysterious dark 
spots on Pluto that have captured the imagination of the world. The Long 
Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) obtained these three images between 
July 1 and 3 of 2015, prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons 
into safe mode.

The left image shows, on the right side of the disk, a large bright area 
on the hemisphere of Pluto that will be seen in close-up by New Horizons 
on July 14. The three images together show the full extent of a continuous 
swath of dark terrain that wraps around much of Pluto's equatorial region. 
The western end of the swath (right image) breaks up into a series of 
striking dark regularly-spaced spots, each hundreds of miles in size, 
which were first detected in New Horizons images taken in late June. Intriguing 
details are beginning to emerge in the bright material north of the dark 
region, in particular a series of bright and dark patches that are conspicuous 
just below the center of the disk in the right image. In all three black-and-white 
views, the apparent jagged bottom edge of Pluto is the result of image 
processing. The inset shows Pluto's orientation, illustrating its north 
pole, equator, and central meridian running from pole to pole. 

The color version of the July 3 LORRI image was created by adding color 
data from the Ralph instrument gathered earlier in the mission.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI