NASA continues to publish unique shootings of Pluto’s surface. The dpi is 400 meters per pixel and allows getting images of incredibly high resolution. At first, such photos appeared in July 2015 and created a sensation in scientific society. Astronomers consider these images to be the most exciting of anything we have ever observed in Solar System.

William McKinnon, a scientist from Washington noted that the surface has distinctive relief with mountains and denes. This could be caused either by more dense atmosphere in earlier times or by some unknown process.

Atmosphere haze of Pluto has much more layers, than it was anticipated by scientists. The haze creates effect of soft highlighting of shadowed parts allowing cameras to take photos. «This bonus twilight view is a wonderful gift that Pluto has handed to us, « said John Spencer, a GGI deputy lead from SwRI. «Now we can study geology in terrain that we never expected to see. «

Getting such images is possible thanks to spacecraft New Horizons – development of NASA, which has been launched at the beginning of 2006. In 2007 it passed Jupiter, in 2008 – Saturn, this year spacecraft passed Pluto and continues its way to Kuiper belt (a region of the Solar System beyond the Neptune orbit).

In the same 2006 Pluto has officially became a dwarf planet. On publishing by International Astronomical Union the term definition of a “planet” Pluto appeared to be not corresponding to all demands. As a planet, it circles the Sun, has its own satellites, his spherical form is typical for planets. Still planet is supposed to either clear up its orbit of similar objects – make them satellites or send off. Being quite tiny in space terms, Pluto is only 0.07 of weight of objects circling around it. In the same year in English appeared the verb «to pluto«, which means, «to downgrade, demote or remove altogether from a prestigious group or list«.

via NASA