The Two Very Different Sides of Pluto

Color Images Show Amazing Features

Just when you thought Pluto couldn’t surprise you more, here come images of its two hemispheres, showing very different landscape markings. The image on the left is what New Horizons will see first during the encounter, and it seems to have a good mix of dark and light features on the surface.

That image on the right, though — whoa! What looks  like four evenly-spaced “somethings” along the limb (which is the equator). And a sort of dark crescent up above that? Craters? Hills? Canyons? What could they be? The answer to that will be tantalizing the New Horizons team until the next images show up. It’s safe to say, nobody’s seen anything quite like these views before and Pluto is definitely giving us something to think about.

Also, notice how much more colorful Pluto is compared to its companion world, Charon, which is darker and grayer. What’s up with that?  In another 13 days or so, we’ll know even more than we know today. But, for now, the glimpses are just getting more tantalizing even as the view clears up. Clearly, Pluto is not a frozen dead world. Its atmosphere is still there (that is,  it hasn’t frozen out yet, which will happen as the dwarf planet gets farther away from the Sun), and the different terrains and bright-and-dark markings are telling us that Pluto still has many surprises to deliver.