Cosmos
Cosmos is a quarterly science magazine. We aim to inspire curiosity in ‘The Science of Everything’ and make the world of science accessible to everyone.
By Cosmos
Scroll down to the huge image below for the most detailed view of Pluto’s terrain yet.
The mosaic strip extends across the hemisphere that faced New Horizons spacecraft as it flew past Pluto in July last year and NASA has now included all of the highest-resolution images taken by the probe.
The mosaic has the amazing resolution of about 80 metres a pixel allowing us to examine the dwarf planet’s surface in unprecedented detail.
“This new image product is just magnetic,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, inColorado.
“It makes me want to go back on another mission to Pluto and get high-resolution images like these across the entire surface.”
The width of the strip ranges from more than 90 kilometres at its northern end to about 75 kilometres at its southern point.
The perspective changes greatly along the strip: at its northern end, the view looks out horizontally across the surface, while at its southern end, the view looks straight down onto the surface.
