A Full Day On Pluto and Charon

On approach in July 2015, the cameras on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured Pluto rotating over the course of a full “Pluto day.” The best available images of each side of Pluto taken during approach have been combined to create this view of a full rotation. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

The New Horizons mission team has released a new set of images showing a full rotation of Pluto and its largest moon Charon. A day on Pluto and Charon is 6.4 Earth days long.

The images highlight the differences between the “encounter hemisphere”, imaged at higher resolution, and the “far side” hemisphere, imaged at lower resolution.

On approach to the Pluto system in July 2015, the cameras on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured images of the largest of Pluto’s five moons, Charon, rotating over the course of a full day. The best currently available images of each side of Charon taken during approach have been combined to create this view of a full rotation of the moon. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI