                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2022 March 26

                               Pluto at Night
       Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research
                                  Institute

   Explanation: The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene. In the
   stunning spacebased perspective the Sun is 4.9 billion kilometers
   (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant world. It was
   captured by far flung New Horizons in July of 2015 when the spacecraft
   was at a range of some 21,000 kilometers from Pluto, about 19 minutes
   after its closest approach. A denizen of the Kuiper Belt in dramatic
   silhouette, the image also reveals Pluto's tenuous, surprisingly
   complex layers of hazy atmosphere. Near the top of the frame the
   crescent twilight landscape includes southern areas of nitrogen ice
   plains now formally known as Sputnik Planitia and rugged mountains of
   water-ice in the Norgay Montes.

                      Tomorrow's picture: titanic flash
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

