True Colors of Pluto July 23, 2018 This is the most accurate natural color images of Pluto taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. These natural-color images result from refined calibration of data gathered by New Horizons' color Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The colour of Pluto depends on how you observe it, but New Horizons and Hubble have revealed the dwarf planet's rich typography and hues.
Pluto's atmosphere has a blue haze, in a new photo from the New Horizons probe. But the particles causing that color are probably gray or red - and the planet's surface has red ice. Thanks to the New Horizons mission, which conducted the first detailed study of Pluto in 2014, we know that Pluto's color is rather diverse, with patches of white, yellow and reddish.
This natural-color image of Pluto results from refined calibration of data gathered by New Horizons' color Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The processing creates images that would approximate the colors that the human eye would perceive, bringing them closer to "true color" than the images released near the encounter. The Discovery of Pluto's Color The discovery of Pluto's color dates back to the 1950s, when astronomers first began to study the planet using telescopes.
Initially, Pluto appeared as a faint, grayish-white dot in the sky, but as technology improved, scientists were able to gather more detailed information about its color. In the 1970s, astronomers used spectroscopy to analyze the light. New Horizons scientists combined the latest black and white map of Pluto's surface features (left) with a map of the planet's colors (right) to produce a detailed color portrait of the planet's northern hemisphere (center).
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI What color is Pluto? The answer, revealed in the first maps made from New Horizons data, turns out to be shades of reddish brown. Although. Pluto is surrounded by a haze of blue.
The New Horizons space probe has sent back color photos of the dwarf planet on the edge of our solar system, and Pluto is ringed by blue. Color map of Pluto This map contains data from New Horizons' color imager, Ralph MVIC, in a version processed about a year after the Pluto flyby. The color map shows strong variations in Pluto's color with latitude, from its orangish north to its pinkish midlatitudes to its very dark equatorial band, with Sputnik planitia sitting athwart the band.
Pluto's surface has three primary color hues: red, white, and blue. This is due to the complex chemistry of its icy terrain and atmospheric processes. The red areas, such as Tombaugh Regio, are caused by tholins-complex molecules formed when ultraviolet (UV) light from the Sun interacts with methane (CH₄) in Pluto's thin atmosphere.
These molecules then settle onto the surface.