A false color image of the planet Pluto uses a technique called principal component analysis to highlight the color differences between Pluto's distinct regions. (Photo : Reuters)
In the latest news from NASA, its New Horizons team has released the first official video of Pluto and it is in color. The footage tops off a rewarding year for space exploration for NASA and its scientists.
NASA's New Horizons team flew around Pluto and a 256 x256 pixel camera is credited with taking the first movie images of Pluto in color. The LEISA is a spectro-photometer that creates 2D images. The cam has no moving parts, making it conducive fro deep-space exploration.
The details on Pluto's surface can be seen down to 500 yards in NASA's video. The video technique used by LEISA also confirmed there was water and ice on Pluto. Pluto's biggest moon, Charon was also found to have ammonia ice with the camera.
The end product of the images from Pluto is exciting for NASA researchers to work with. The colors were remapped since it would not be possible to view infrared light. The NASA video of Pluto also stands out because it is not merely stitching together still images.
In its blog, NASA said that the New Horizon Pluto team is analyzing the film to discover more about the surface properties of Charon and Pluto. Experts say that the images reveal the best geological details of Pluto.
"These new images give us a breathtaking, superhigh resolution window into Pluto's geology," NPR quoted New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern as saying.
"Nothing of this quality was available for Venus or Mars until decades after their first flybys, yet at Pluto we're there already down among the craters, mountains and ice fields less than five months after flyby," Stern added. "The science we can do with these images is simply unbelievable."
Here is a look at NASA's New Horizon video footage as it glides by Pluto:
