This Is Why Pluto Was Turned Into Pop Art
Before July, we only had a very vague and very fuzzy idea about what Pluto would look like up-close. Now, since the NASA New Horizons flyby, we’re becoming intimately familiar with the tiny, complex world’s icy plains, mountains, chemical composition and tenuous, yet intricate, atmosphere.
The mission’s findings so far have been nothing short of revolutionary — we have a complex, dynamic world living in what was once thought to be a dead and frozen region of the solar system.
With all this diversity on Pluto, it can be hard for planetary scientists to discern the different types of surface features for scientific study, so they have produced what, at first, looks like an iconic Andy Warhol creation. They’ve created a psychedelic Pluto, blotted with highly contrasting colors.
Although science often imitates art, this interpretation of Pluto’s famous hemisphere holds critical scientific purpose. The technique is known as “principal component analysis” and it is used to see slight changes in surface composition. The observation was captured with New Horizons’ Ralph/MVIC color camera on July 14 as the spacecraft was nearing closest approach of the dwarf planet — at a range of 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers).
Presented by the New Horizons surface composition this week at the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in National Harbor, Md., this false-color view of Pluto is testament to how complex the world really is.
The splashes of vibrant hues highlight slight color differences between Pluto’s distinct regions. Immediately, Pluto’s plains and canyons pop into view. We can distinguish between the older, more cratered region of Pioneer Terra (to the north) and compare it with the astonishingly young ice flows in Sputnik Planum (the western lobe of Tombaugh Regio — Pluto’s huge heart-shaped region). To the far right (east) of the observation, we can see the shadows cast over Pluto’s bizarre “snakeskin”-like Tartarus Dorsa region.
Pluto is a feast of surprising features and, although New Horizons is diving deeper into the Kuiper Belt with Pluto a distant memory, we have months of data still to be beamed back to Earth from the historic mission. In other words, we’re only at the cusp of beginning to understand the planetary mechanisms driving the dwarf planet, a planetary adventure that is as captivating as it is mysterious.
