Mosaic of high-resolution <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Long-Range_Reconnaissance_Imager_(LORRI)" class="extiw" title="w:New Horizons">LORRI</a> images of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto" class="extiw" title="w:Pluto">Pluto</a>, sent back from NASA's <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons" class="extiw" title="w:New Horizons">New Horizons</a></i> spacecraft from Sept. 5 to 7, 2015. The image is dominated by the informally-named icy plain <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_Planum" class="extiw" title="w:Sputnik Planum">Sputnik Planum</a>, the smooth, bright region across the center. This image also features a tremendous variety of other landscapes surrounding Sputnik. The smallest visible features are 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers) in size, and the mosaic covers a region roughly 1,000 miles (1600 kilometers) wide. The image was taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers).
<p>The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio, leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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UPLOADER NOTES: The original NASA image has been modified by the uploader as follows: rotating clockwise 90°, extending the lower border by 154 pixels, and converting from TIFF to JPEG format. North is to the upper right.
NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute
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