• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • DCMA
  • Sitemap
  • Submit
Regional Posts
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Sports
    • Politics
  • Business
    • Crypto
    • Marketing
  • Lifestyle
    • Entertainment
    • Fashion
    • Food
  • Tech
    • Gaming
    • Gadgets
  • Science
  • Health
  • Travel
  • World
Regional Posts
  • News
    • Sports
    • Politics
  • Business
    • Crypto
    • Marketing
  • Lifestyle
    • Entertainment
    • Fashion
    • Food
  • Tech
    • Gaming
    • Gadgets
  • Science
  • Health
  • Travel
  • World
No Result
View All Result
Regional Posts
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Pluto’s dark side revealed by moonlight in pictures from New Horizons

by Staff Writer
November 5, 2021
in Science
0
Pluto's dark side revealed by moonlight in pictures from New Horizons
557
SHARES
3.7k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

After NASA’s New Horizons mission flew past Pluto in 2015, it turned around and took pictures of the dwarf planet’s back, revealing its moonlit dark side

READ ALSO

Scientists Gave Young Mice The Blood of Old Mice. Then Things Got Weird : ScienceAlert

Saiga antelopes have increased 10-fold after mass die-off in 2015

Space



5 November 2021

By Leah Crane

The dark side of Pluto is faintly illuminated by sunlight reflected by the moon Charon in images captured by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015

NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Southwest Research Institute/NOIRLab

Moonlight on Pluto has revealed some of the dwarf planet’s dark side. On its way past Pluto in 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft turned around and took pictures of this world’s back, and after a lengthy cleaning-up process, the images have revealed some of the first details we have ever seen of the side that wasn’t illuminated by the sun at the time.

Taking images of Pluto from beyond its orbit is difficult because at that position, it is backlit by the sun. “When you look back at Pluto’s dark side, you turn around and look almost right at the sun, and it’s pretty damn bright,” says Tod Lauer at the US National Optical Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory in Arizona, who is part of the New Horizons team. “It’s like driving in a car with a dirty window, looking into the sun without a sun visor, trying to read a street sign.”

To make the pictures from New Horizons usable, Lauer and his colleagues had to rework the mission’s data processing procedure to eliminate the parts of the images that were overexposed by sunlight and therefore didn’t contain any useful data. Once those parts of the images were cleared away, the researchers could manipulate what remained to see the moonlit surface of Pluto.

While Pluto’s major moon, Charon, is much smaller than Earth’s moon, it is shinier and closer to its host world than our moon is, so it provides about half as much light to the side of Pluto that’s facing away from the sun. Under this faint illumination, the researchers found one spot that was brighter than its surroundings, which is probably a deposit of nitrogen or methane ice.

They also found that the south pole appeared to be much less bright than the north pole. “You expect the poles should be more or less the same, and this difference is intriguing – it may indicate a seasonal thing,” says Lauer. New Horizons flew by Pluto at the end of the small world’s southern summer, so this may be a hint that bright ice deposits don’t survive that relatively warm period, or that haze particles from the tenuous atmosphere are deposited on the surface in the summer.

Reference: arxiv.org/abs/2110.11976

Sign up to our free Launchpad newsletter for a voyage across the galaxy and beyond, every Friday

More on these topics:

Source by www.newscientist.com

Share223Tweet139
Previous Post

Listen to what Colby Covington told Kamaru Usman after being pushed at the UFC 268 face-offs

Next Post

I went to bed ‘depressed’ amid controversy

Related Posts

Scientists Gave Young Mice The Blood of Old Mice. Then Things Got Weird : ScienceAlert
Science

Scientists Gave Young Mice The Blood of Old Mice. Then Things Got Weird : ScienceAlert

August 15, 2022
Saiga antelopes have increased 10-fold after mass die-off in 2015
Science

Saiga antelopes have increased 10-fold after mass die-off in 2015

August 14, 2022
The Arctic Is Warming Four Times Faster Than the Rest of the Planet
Science

The Arctic Is Warming Four Times Faster Than the Rest of the Planet

August 13, 2022
Left photo: a glass vessel with rosemary flowers boiling in white wine. Right photo: Two stopped bottles against a white backdrop. The left bottle contains the resulting light-colored liquid from the rosemary flowers and wine. The right contains an extract from a myrrh concoction and is darker in color.
Science

These researchers are unlocking Renaissance beauty secrets

August 12, 2022
Eelgrass in the Atlantic Ocean
Science

Why Eelgrass in the Atlantic Ocean Faces an Uphill Battle | Science

August 11, 2022
New Study Suggests Spiders Snooze Just Like Humans
Science

New Study Suggests Spiders Snooze Just Like Humans

August 11, 2022

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

POPULAR NEWS

5 Email Templates For a Performance Management Process

5 Email Templates For a Performance Management Process

November 1, 2021
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle havey shown the first photo of their daughter Lilibet Diana, six months after she was born, and fans have gone wild over Archie's red hair (seen left)

Prince and Meghan Markle show baby Lilibet’s face – and Archie has red hair

December 24, 2021
sex

How To Increase Male And Female Sexual Desire

November 26, 2021
Florida Tik Tok star Damaury Mikula, 18, was arrested on Friday after he led Pasco County Police on a 100-mile-per-hour high speed chase

Florida TikTok star, 18, is arrested provoking police into high speed chase

November 1, 2021
Capitol Police Release New Video of Officer Lila Morris Beating Already Unconscious Rosanne Boyland with Stick on Jan. 6 -- But Video Is Super Pixilated to Protect Morris

Capitol Police Release New Video of Officer Lila Morris Beating Already Unconscious Rosanne Boyland with Stick on Jan. 6 — But Video Is Super Pixilated to Protect Morris

February 16, 2022

EDITOR'S PICK

Tiger Shark in Bahamas

Some Tiger Sharks Are Migrating Farther North Due to Climate Change | Science

January 15, 2022
The Ultimate Guide To Email Marketing for Your Dropshipping Business

The Ultimate Guide To Email Marketing for Your Dropshipping Business

June 29, 2022
Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA). Picture by Steven Howard of TravelNewsAsia.com Click to enlarge.

Hong Kong Airport Reports 127.4% Increase in Passenger Numbers

October 19, 2021
News Leak: Dolphins Recognize Each Other By Tasting One Another's Urine

News Leak: Dolphins Recognize Each Other By Tasting One Another’s Urine

May 31, 2022

About

REGIONAL POSTS Web Magazine is an online magazine covering international news, politics, technology, health, education, and much more.Read More.

Follow Us

Submit a News | Write For Us

Feel free to contact us for submission queries. via contact form or email us at : [email protected]

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • DCMA
  • Sitemap
  • Submit

© 2021 Regionalposts.com

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Sports
    • Politics
  • Business
    • Crypto
    • Marketing
  • Lifestyle
    • Entertainment
    • Fashion
    • Food
  • Tech
    • Gaming
    • Gadgets
  • Science
  • Health
  • Travel
  • World

© 2021 Regionalposts.com