Tag: Nix

  • ‘Weird’ mountains on Pluto may be ice volcanoes

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    The informally named feature Wright Mons, located south of Sputnik Planum on Pluto, is an unusual feature that’s about 100 miles (160 kilometers) wide and 13,000 feet (4 kilometers) high. It displays a summit depression (visible in the center of the image) that’s approximately 35 miles (56 kilometers) across, with a distinctive hummocky texture on…

  • Initial Pluto flyby science results published

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    STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION This high-resolution image captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC). The bright expanse is the western lobe of the “heart,” informally called Sputnik Planum, which has been found to be rich in nitrogen, carbon monoxide…

  • Pluto’s moons Nix and Hydra resolved

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    New views of Nix and Hydra, two of Pluto’s four smallest moons, show the tiny worlds in detail for the first time. The color image of Nix is from data obtained by the Ralph instrument on New Horizons from July 14 at a range of 102,000 miles. The spacecraft’s higher-resolution LORRI instrument collected the black-and-white…