PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 30 (UPI) — On Thursday, NASA released another image of Pluto‘s crescent, this time fully exposed.
The photo reveals the dwarf planet from a position opposite the sun, solar rays only illuminating Pluto’s edge, causing it to look like our own waning moon.
Earlier this month, NASA released a similar image, but it was only partially developed. The new, fuller image features reprocessing work by scientists with the New Horizons mission team.
The photo was captured just 15 minutes after New Horizons made its closest approach — one of the probe’s last goodbye looks at the dwarf planet as it continued on its trajectory toward another Kuiper Belt object, 2014 MU69.
On the far west side of Pluto, in the heart of crescent, viewers can see Sputnik Planum, the smooth icy expanse in the western lobe of the heart-shaped region known as Tombaugh Regio. To the far east, on the dark edge of the planet, appears the silhouette of Pluto’s plateaus.
Back to the east, just above Sputnik Planum are rugged mountain, boasting some of the highest peaks on the dwarf planet. Also illuminated by the setting sun are the dozen-plus layers of Pluto’s wisp-thin atmosphere.
Though New Horizons is now far from Pluto, it will continue to beam back more images and data from its historic flyby for the next several months.
