SINGAPORE: NASA's video released last week is as close as you will get to actually flying over the icy terrains of Pluto.
The "dramatic" movie - created using data from the New Horizons spacecraft's flyby journey in 2015 - offers "spectacular new perspectives of the many unusual features that were discovered and which have reshaped our views of the Pluto system", NASA said in its statement.
Last year, New Horizons scientists revealed their findings from the spacecraft's close-up adventure, which its principal investigator Alan Stern described as "completely transform(ing) our view of Pluto".
The papers authored by the scientists revealed that the "former ‘astronomer’s planet’" was, in fact, a "real world with diverse and active geology, exotic surface chemistry, a complex atmosphere, puzzling interaction with the sun and an intriguing system of small moons", Mr Stern added.
The flyover video of Pluto, which was downgraded to the status of dwarf planet in 2006, "begins over the highlands to the southwest of the great expanse of nitrogen ice plain informally named Sputnik Planitia", said NASA. Read more...
The "dramatic" movie - created using data from the New Horizons spacecraft's flyby journey in 2015 - offers "spectacular new perspectives of the many unusual features that were discovered and which have reshaped our views of the Pluto system", NASA said in its statement.
Last year, New Horizons scientists revealed their findings from the spacecraft's close-up adventure, which its principal investigator Alan Stern described as "completely transform(ing) our view of Pluto".
The papers authored by the scientists revealed that the "former ‘astronomer’s planet’" was, in fact, a "real world with diverse and active geology, exotic surface chemistry, a complex atmosphere, puzzling interaction with the sun and an intriguing system of small moons", Mr Stern added.
The flyover video of Pluto, which was downgraded to the status of dwarf planet in 2006, "begins over the highlands to the southwest of the great expanse of nitrogen ice plain informally named Sputnik Planitia", said NASA. Read more...