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A Decade Since New Horizons Revealed Pluto’s Iconic Heart

📷 Image source: nasa.gov

Ten years ago, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made history by capturing the first high-resolution images of Pluto, revealing its now-iconic heart-shaped feature. On July 14, 2015, the probe flew within 7,800 miles of the dwarf planet, delivering unprecedented details of its icy surface. The heart, formally named Tombaugh Regio after Pluto’s discoverer Clyde Tombaugh, became an instant symbol of the mission’s success.

New Horizons’ data transformed Pluto from a distant, blurry dot into a geologically active world with nitrogen glaciers, towering ice mountains, and a thin atmosphere. Scientists were particularly intrigued by the heart’s left lobe, Sputnik Planitia, a vast plain of frozen nitrogen that may hide a subsurface ocean. The mission also uncovered evidence of cryovolcanoes and shifting ice sheets, challenging assumptions about Pluto’s dynamics.

To mark the anniversary, NASA revisited the groundbreaking images, emphasizing how New Horizons reshaped planetary science. The spacecraft, now in the Kuiper Belt, continues to explore distant objects, building on its Pluto legacy. Additional observations from telescopes like Hubble and future missions like the James Webb Space Telescope aim to further decode Pluto’s mysteries.

The mission’s success has fueled calls for a return to Pluto, with proposals for orbiters or landers to study its complex terrain in greater detail. As New Horizons ventures deeper into the Kuiper Belt, its discoveries underscore the enduring allure of our solar system’s frontier.

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📚 Referensi:

• https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/10-years-ago-nasas-new-horizons-captures-plutos-heart/