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New Horizons snaps spectacular shot of Pluto's atmosphere

A new image captured by the LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager aboard NASA's New Horizons space probe shows the icy dwarf planet's atmosphere backlit by the sun.

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NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
An 'annular Pluto,' as seen from New Horizons on July 15.
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NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
New Horizons discovers flowing ices in the northern region of Pluto's Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain), where swirl-shaped patterns of light and dark suggest that a surface layer of exotic ices has flowed around obstacles and into depressions, much like glaciers on Earth.
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NASA/Johns Hopkins University/APL/SWRI
A stunning high-resolution image of Pluto by LORRI combined with color images from the Ralph instrument from just 280,000 miles (450,000 km) as the spacecraft was headed for closest approach.
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厂别苍鈥擳丑别 released an amazing and iconic image at today鈥檚 press conference, showing the silhouette of Pluto inside the ring of its atmosphere as it was backlit by the Sun.

The image was taken on July 15 by the spacecraft鈥檚 LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) from a distance of 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers), about five times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

鈥淢y jaw was on the ground when I saw this first image of an alien atmosphere in the Kuiper Belt,鈥� said principal investigator for New Horizons Alan Stern in today鈥檚 press release. 鈥淚t reminds us that exploration brings us more than just incredible discoveries鈥攊t brings incredible beauty.鈥�

But beyond just providing us with an amazing eye-candy view, the layering exposed in the image is valuable in terms of modeling the makeup and composition of the atmosphere as well.

New Horizons flew by Pluto on July 14 at over 8 miles (14 kilometers) a second. The data retrieval pipeline from a distance of 32 astronomical units and increasing is so slow that we鈥檒l be seeing new data from New Horizons well into 2016.

The team also released evidence for flowing methane ice and hydrocarbons on Pluto鈥檚 surface today, as well as some of the highest resolution imagery of Pluto's surface seen yet.

And the first data from the occultation experiment from Pluto鈥檚 large moon Charon was released today as well. New Horizons flew briefly through the shadows of Pluto and Charon as it receded, conducting radio and spectroscopic occultation observations as it did so.

NASA鈥檚 flying SOFIA infrared telescope and amateur observations of stellar occultations by Pluto as seen from Earth will also supplement New Horizons data to help researchers model and understand its atmosphere.

鈥淲e鈥檝e only seen surfaces like this on active worlds like Earth and Mars,鈥� said mission co-investigator John Spencer in today鈥檚 press conference.

It鈥檚 a great time to be a planetary scientist for sure. More amazing results are on the way, as humanity continues to explore the brave new worlds of Pluto and its moons for months to come.

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