New 'Snakeskin' Image of Pluto Reveals Terrain with Dragon-like Scales

The New Horizons spacecraft is continuing its trek toward the Kuiper belt. In the meantime, though, it's sending back images to NASA of the tiny planet, Pluto. The newest high-resolution images of Pluto, though, show some interesting features, including a picture that makes Pluto look as though it has "snakeskin."

"It's a unique and perplexing landscape stretching over hundreds of miles," said William McKinnon, New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team deputy lead from Washington University in St. Louis, in a news release. "It looks more like tree bark or dragon scales than geology. This'll really take time to figure out; maybe it's some combination of internal tectonic forces and ice sublimation driven by Pluto's faint sunlight.

The "snakeskin" image of Pluto's surface, though, is just one new piece of data that New Horizons has sent back in recent days. The spacecraft has also captured the highest-resolution color view yet of Pluto, as well as detailed spectral maps and other high-resolution images.

The new snakeskin image actually shows an area near the line that separates night from day, capturing a vast rippling landscape of strange, aligned linear ridges.

Other images, including the new "extended color" view of Pluto, were taken by New Horizons' wide-angle Ralph-Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera and then downlinked to Earth. The colored image shows the extraordinarily rich color palette of Pluto. Instead of a uniform grey, the tiny planet is made up of rich browns and reds.

"With these just-downlinked images and maps, we've turned a new page in the study of Pluto beginning to reveal the planet at high resolution in both color and composition," said Alan Stern, New Horizons Principal Investigator. "I wish Pluto's discoverer Clyde Tombaugh had lived to see this day."

For more information about the New Horizons mission, visit NASA's website.

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