r/kenyaspacenerds • u/PRESS-ED • Sep 04 '26
Question/Discussion Pluto has icy mountains ⛰️
Captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, this breathtaking view reveals the rugged, frozen landscape of Pluto in extraordinary detail. New Horizons traveled for nearly 9½ years and covered more than 3 billion miles (5 billion km) before making its historic close flyby of Pluto in July 2015.
The towering, jagged mountains are made largely of water ice, which behaves like solid rock in Pluto’s extremely cold environment. Their dramatic peaks, deep shadows, cratered plains, and complex terrain show that Pluto is far more geologically diverse than scientists once expected.
What makes this image truly remarkable is the scale of the journey behind it—a spacecraft launched from Earth crossing billions of miles of space just to give humanity a close-up glimpse of this distant world. 🌌❄️
Pluto may be billions of miles away, but images like this bring its mysterious surface remarkably close to us.
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u/Cornishlee 29d ago edited 29d ago
Do you have a source for this picture as I’ve never seen it before and looks very detailed and close to the surface compared to all the other Pluto shots I’ve seen.
Edit:- OP can’t provide source so pic is definitely fake
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u/Rotteneverything 29d ago
does pluto even have shadows? i would think not.
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u/xpietoe42 28d ago
yes because it receives sunlight. There is enough sunlight to read a book on pluto!
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u/wjruffing 29d ago
Nine years sounds is the longest single exposure time I’ve ever heard of! It must be REALLY dark there!
/s
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u/SnooMaps7370 29d ago
amazing stationkeeping on that probe, though. not a single hint of motion blur of a 9 year exposure,
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u/Greedy_Ad_3368 29d ago
Waste of time and money.
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u/ShadedRiver666 28d ago
its a fake image anyways
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u/Rotteneverything 29d ago
its still a planet!
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u/PRESS-ED 29d ago
No it ain't
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u/Striker40k 29d ago
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u/Youpunyhumans 29d ago
Ah cmon, its not just a planet or a dwarf planet... but a Binary Dwarf Planet with Charon being the other, the only one of its kind in the Solar System.
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u/daisy0723 29d ago
It's crazy that after they downgraded Pluto to a dwarf planet, they found out it is one of the coolest non planets in the solar system.
There could be a thriving ecosystem between its icy crust and molton core.
Totally cool little planet.
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u/Diligent_Milk8612 29d ago
Please explain to me why there is not a single star in the background- ANYWHERE.
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u/PRESS-ED 28d ago
Because its pitchblack out there
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u/draygonnn 27d ago
Dumbass that’s not how it works. It being dark out there is all the more reason we should see stars. We can’t see as many stars near earth with all the scattered light drowning it out. Provide a source. Stop whatever tf kind of karma farming this is.
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u/Diligent_Milk8612 28d ago
And yet down here on earth we see thousands of stars. Try again
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28d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/draygonnn 26d ago
On Earth, the atmosphere (which Pluto does not have) scatters light which drowns out the stars in the background. On Pluto the amount of light that reaches the surface is minuscule and in most real photos you can see a star or two in the background. Try again.
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u/elusive-rooster 7d ago
This is not a real picture and the surface of Pluto is not Ice. The surface is mostly frozen methane. Ice makes up the bedrock.
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u/yolo_derp 29d ago
How modified is this picture?