Posted on 09/06/2026 12:24:58 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: Pluto is more colorful than we can see. Color data and high-resolution images of our Solar System's most famous dwarf planet, taken by the robotic New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby in 2015 July, have been digitally combined to give an enhanced-color view of this ancient world sporting an unexpectedly young surface. The featured enhanced color image is not only esthetically pretty but scientifically useful, making surface regions of differing chemical composition visually distinct. For example, the light-colored heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio on the lower right is clearly shown here to be divisible into two regions that are geologically different, with the leftmost lobe, Sputnik Planitia, also appearing unusually smooth. After Pluto, New Horizons continued on, shooting past asteroid Arrokoth in 2019 with enough speed to escape our Solar System completely.
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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
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Wow.
Such a cute pup.
It may be cold but it is not lonely.
Pluto has five moons.
Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra
bttt
Since Neil-Tyson Griffer spearheaded the demotion of Pluto, turns out it is really quite interesting and should have been a planet all along!!!
Pluto will always be the Ninth Planet, as far as I’m concerned.
Ex-squeeze me. Did they use the word “planet”?
I thought that was forbidden.
Neil is an insufferable narcissist
When discovered, Pluto was considered larger than Mercury.
But since then, as the science improved, Pluto has shrunk.
The moons of Pluto were discovered and the albedo of it has increased. So now, its diameter is not even half of Mercury, its size about tenth of Mercury, the mass only about 1/25 of Mercury.
There are now several known bodies around the size of Pluto, and more to be discovered.
People studying planets do not want to learn about Quaoar and Makemake.
The cutoff of planets were raised and Pluto did not make it!
As a matter of fact Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930 was a very nice man and lived a long life.
Astronomers have not wanted to make him sad, so they waited until his death to downgrade Pluto!
When he finally passed in 1997, the downgrade discussion started immediately and Pluto was officially downgraded in 2006.
He is not even a planetary scientist.
Is that a transgender waffle cone or a cisgender waffle cone? Pluto is a dog and some will even hump your leg.
About 1989 Clyde Tombaugh came to lecture at the university where I was then teaching and I went to hear him. A great experience—he was full of enthusiasm for astronomy. He did a lot in his long career besides discovering Pluto.
That looks very cool!
Pluto is a right impressive PLANET.
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