New Delhi: The US space agency NASA's New Horizon spacecraft has spotted one of the strangest landforms on the dwarf planet when it flew over Pluto in July, 2015.
The spotted strangest landforms was the Pluto’s bladed terrain just east of Tombaugh Regio, the informal name given to the dwarft planet's large heart-shaped surface feature.
One needs just a pair of of 3-D glasses to see why the terrain is so interesting. The blades are the dominant feature of a broad area informally named Tartarus Dorsa. They align from north to south, reach hundreds of feet high and are typically spaced a few miles apart. This remarkable landform, unlike any other seen in our solar system, is perched on a much broader set of rounded ridges that are separated by flat valley floors.
Global view
Photo Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
In this global view of Pluto, the bladed terrain extends far to the east. New Horizons scientists have speculated about (but not yet agreed on) the terrain’s origins. This view also combines a Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) color scan and an image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), both obtained on July 13, 2015 – the day before New Horizons’ closest approach.
(Source: NASA)
