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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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

2025 May 18
Your browser does not support the video tag. Alt text: A flyover of Pluto is shown from the New Horizons spacecraft.

Explanation: What if you could fly over -- what might you see? The spacecraft did just this in as it shot past the distant world at a speed of about 80,000 kilometers per hour. Images from this spectacular passage have been color enhanced, vertically scaled, and digitally combined into the . As your begins, light dawns on thought to be composed of water ice but colored by frozen nitrogen. Soon, to your right, you see a of mostly that has segmented into strange polygons that are thought to have from a comparatively warm . Craters and ice mountains are below. The dims and ends over terrain dubbed because it shows 500-meter high ridges separated by kilometer-sized gaps. The robotic has too much to ever return to and is now of our .

Authors & editors: () & ()
NASA Official: Amber Straughn .
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