Photo of Pluto May Show Cloud for 1st Time

[senona]

A newly-released image taken during New Horizons' flyby of Pluto shows the back lit dwarf planet in a detailed new light. 

The photo, captured just minutes after the spacecraft's closest approach with Pluto on July 14, 2015, reveals the world's atmosphere illuminated by the rays of the distant sun nearly 4 billion miles away.

A spectacular new image of Pluto shows rugged mountains, nitrogen-ice plains and, perhaps, a big cloud scudding through the dwarf planet's exotic skies. NASA even described the view as the "twilight zone" of Pluto.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured the photo shortly after its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, when the sun was on the other side of the dwarf planet from the probe's perspective.

In the backlit twilight view, sunlight filters through Pluto's many-layered atmosphere and lights up certain features, including the towering Norgay Montes mountain range and the vast plain known as Sputnik Planum, whose surface is likely renewed every 500,000 years or so by churning convective processes.

Also illuminated is a bright wisp tens of miles across "that may be a discrete, low-lying cloud in Pluto's atmosphere; if so, it would be the only one yet identified in New Horizons imagery," NASA officials wrote in a photo description Thursday (June 2) that dubbed the image Pluto's "twilight zone." "Atmospheric models suggest that methane clouds can occasionally form in Pluto's atmosphere."

These features — mountains, plains and possible cloud — all lie in a sliver of sunlight, at the top limb of Pluto. But intriguing landscape details are also visible near the bottom of the photo, which depicts Pluto's night side.

This backlit Pluto photo was captured on July 14, 2015 by NASA’s New Horizons probe, shortly after its closest approach to the dwarf planet. Mountains, ice plains and a possible cloud are visible in the sunlit portion of the photo (top inset), while rugged topography is apparent on Pluto’s dark side (bottom inset).

I can't wait to see what else they discover about Pluto.

Pluto appears to be a world filled with fascinating geology that scientists are trying to figure out.

They are still waiting on more data to be downloaded, which may take a few more months.

New Horizons is still beaming flyby data home, and will continue to do so through this coming fall. (The probe is currently about 3.2 billion miles, or 5.15 billion km, from Earth; such a vast distance makes transmission rates slow, due to the significant weakening of New Horizons' radio signal.)

Gorgeous 'Twilight Zone' Photo of Pluto May Show Cloud for 1st Time