Station New Horizons made a picture “primeval dread and gloom” Pluto – Lenta.ru

Station New Horizons made a picture Styx – small satellites of Pluto, named after the Greek goddess of primeval dread and gloom (and the river in Hades). Thanks to the data, scientists were able to determine the size and shape of a celestial body. This was reported on the NASA website.

The satellite of Pluto has an elongated shape. At length he reaches seven kilometers and a maximum width – five. The surface of the Styx, as well as other satellites of Pluto (nobody Hydra previously examined station New Horizons), covered with ice and is highly reflective.

The new data, scientists have taken October 5, 2015. For information about the New Horizons Styx station received July 13 for 12.5 hours to rendezvous with Pluto in using its scientific instruments LORRI (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager). Then NASA’s located at a distance of 631 thousand kilometers from the Styx.

Scientists are going to continue the study of the Styx and three other small satellites dwarf planet. In particular, experts are interested in chaotic rotation of celestial bodies, the size, shape, chemical and physical properties, as well as their origin and evolution.

For the first time Styx was discovered in 2012 with the help of space telescope Hubble. In addition to the Styx, Pluto has three small satellites irregular shape (Nix, Hydra and Cerberus) and Charon – large satellite true spherical shape.

The automatic interplanetary station New Horizons beginning September 5, 2015 the peak phase of the transmission Data obtained on the basic research stage, held on 14 July this year, during the next flyby of Pluto and its moons. On the transfer of dozens of gigabytes of data will take about a year.

14:44 July 14, 2015

Currently, the station is located at a distance of more than 5 billion kilometers from Earth. It is expected that in 2019 it will reach planetoid 2014 MU69, at a distance of 1.6 billion kilometers from Pluto in the Kuiper belt. This object can send New Horizons after the dwarf planet. New Horizons mission to be completed in mid-2020s.

The main objective of New Horizons – the study of Pluto and its moon Charon. Scientific equipment installed at the plant, designed to collect data about the possible presence of the magnetosphere from the dwarf planet, its atmosphere, composition and structure of the surface, as well as on cooperation with Charon.