TORONTO – New images of two of Pluto’s five moons were released by NASA on Tuesday.
While Charon, the largest of Pluto’s moons, has been in the spotlight, scientists are equally intrigued by the other four moons, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx.
READ MORE: In Photos: Images of Pluto reveal complex world
The new image of Nix shows a region with a reddish hue (though the image has been enhanced) that measures about 42 km long by 36 km long. Scientists believe that it may be a crater but are awaiting further compositional data to confirm.
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“This observation is so tantalizing, I’m finding it hard to be patient for more Nix data to be downlinked,” said mission scientist Carly Howett of the Southwest Research Institute.
The image of Hydra was taken at a distance of about 231,000 km on July 14, the date of New Horizons’ closest flyby of Pluto. There appear to be two large craters, though their different colour suggest that they are each compositionally different. The new image also allows scientists to determine Hydra’s relative small size: just 55 km by 40 km.
Images of two of the most recently discovered moons, Kerberos and Styx, are expected no later than mid-October.
The New Horizons mission has collected so much data that the team estimates that it will take about 16 months to receive it all.
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