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  • The Storm System at Saturn’s North Pole (video)

In this close-up image of Pluto you can see part of the Sputnik Planum - an icy plain mainly composed of solid nitrogen on the lower part - and the al-Idrisi Mountains towards the top. The mountains, with heights of up to 2500 m (or 1.5 miles), consist of great chunks of Pluto's water-ice crust that appear to be jammed together. At average temperatures of 38 K (-235.2 °C or -391.3 °F) even nitrogen is frozen and can form glacial-like plain areas such as the Sputnik Planum. There is a stunningly clear shoreline between the al-Idrisi Mountains and the Sputnik Planum.

In this image you can reveal surface details to a resolution of about 80 m per pixel.


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Pluto Close Up
Published by Published or last modified on 2024-03-13
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