Pluto in Enhanced Color
Pluto is more colorful than we can see.
Color data and images of our Solar System's most famous
dwarf planet, taken by the robotic
New Horizons spacecraft during its
flyby in July,
have been digitally combined to give an enhanced view of this
ancient world sporting an unexpectedly young surface.
The featured enhanced color image is not only
esthetically pretty but
scientifically useful,
making surface regions of differing chemical composition visually distinct.
For example, the light-colored heart-shaped
Tombaugh Regio on the lower right is clearly shown here to be divisible into two regions that are
geologically different, with the leftmost lobe
Sputnik Planum also appearing unusually smooth.
New Horizons now continues on beyond
Pluto, will continue to beam back more images and data, and will
soon be directed
to change course so that it can
fly past asteroid 2014 MU69 in 2019 January.