Tomorrow, when New Horizons makes its historic flyby of Pluto, it will be focusing in on just one face of the dwarf planet. In this latest photo captured by the space probe’s black-and-white LORRI camera, you can see that face—defined by a large, bright heart-shaped feature—beginning to rotate into view.
Only the top half of the heart is visible on the left side of this image, but come tomorrow, New Horizons will capture the valentine in full. (Viewers will have to wait up to a day and a half to actually see the image, since the probe will be too busy collecting data to send it back to Earth immediately.)
Rotating out of view, on the other hand, will be a number of other interesting geological details. The last good look New Horizons got of Pluto’s far side came in on Saturday. And this image is the best astronomers will get of the bullseye-shaped feature (to the right) that might be an impact crater. Without better images, the New Horizons team may never know for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment