When most people think of Pluto they don't imagine it in rainbow colors, but a new false color image by NASA shows the dwarf planet in stunning psychedelics.
Scientists at NASA's New Horizons mission created the colorful image sing a technique called principal component analysis. The method highlights the subtle but distinct regions of Pluto.
The data for the image was collected by the New Horizons spacecraft's Ralph/MVIC color camera on July 14 at 11:11 AM UTC, from a range of 22,000 miles. The incredible image was presented by Will Grundy of the New Horizons' surface composition team on Nov. 9 at the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in National Harbor, Maryland.
New Horizons also recently released the image below of the complex terrain east and northeast of Pluto's "heart" (Tombaugh Regio). The image will help NASA scientists improve their maps of the dwarf planet's regions, including its north pole and prominent dark spot seen at the bottom of the image called Krun Macula.
