Pluto’s dark side has come into dim view, thanks to the light of the dwarf planet’s moon.
When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto in 2015, almost all the images of the dwarf planet’s unexpectedly complex surface were of the side illuminated by the sun (SN: 7/15/15). Darkness shrouded the dwarf planet’s other hemisphere. Some of it, like the area near the south pole, hadn’t seen the sun for decades.
Now, mission scientists have finally released a grainy view of the dwarf planet’s dark side. The researchers describe the process to take the photo and what it tells them about how Pluto’s nitrogen cycle affects its atmosphere October
→ Continue reading at Science News