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File:Surface Map of Pluto.jpg

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Description

This is the first image-based surface map of Pluto. This map was assembled by computer image processing software from four separate images of Pluto's disk taken with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Faint Object Camera (FOC) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface, as Pluto rotated on its axis in late June and early July 1994. The map, which covers 85% of the planet's surface, confirms that Pluto has a dark equatorial belt and bright polar caps, as inferred from ground-based light curves obtained during the mutual eclipses that occurred between Pluto and its satellite Charon in the late 1980s. The brightness variations in this map may be due to topographic features such as basins and fresh impact craters. However, most of the surface features unveiled by Hubble are likely produced by the complex distribution of frosts that migrate across Pluto's surface with its orbital and seasonal cycles. Names may later be proposed for some of the larger regions. Image reconstruction techniques smooth out the coarse pixels in the four raw images to reveal major regions where the surface is either bright or dark. The black strip across the bottom corresponds to the region surrounding Pluto's south pole, which was pointed away from Earth when the observations were made, and could not be imaged. Pluto itself probably shows even more contrast and perhaps sharper boundaries between light and dark areas than is shown here, but Hubble's resolution (just like early telescopic views of Mars) tends to blur edges and blend together small features sitting inside larger ones.

Italiano: Mappa di Plutone basata su osservazioni del telescopio Hubble.
Date image taken in Jun. - Jul. 1994
Source

NASA planetary photojournal

Author Alan Stern (Southwest Research Institute)/Marc Buie (Lowell Observatory)/NASA/ESA
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Copyright information from http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/policy/index.cfm - Unless otherwise noted, images and video on JPL public web sites (public sites ending with a jpl.nasa.gov address) may be used for any purpose without prior permission [...]
This image or video was catalogued by Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: PIA00826.

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Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current10:56, 31 January 2006Thumbnail for version as of 10:56, 31 January 20062,813 × 1,737 (226 KB)Arnomanehigher resolution
20:47, 1 September 2005Thumbnail for version as of 20:47, 1 September 20051,272 × 786 (78 KB)Lotse*'''Original Caption Released with Image:''' This is the first image-based surface map of the solar system's most remote planet, Pluto. This map was assembled by computer image processing software from four separate images of Pluto's disk taken with the

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