18 Jul 2015

Pluto mission

From This Way Up, 12:15 pm on 18 July 2015

Astronomer Michele Bannister. Photo: Supplied.

The amazing images of Pluto and her moons beamed back to earth from the New Horizons space mission have been all over the news this week.

They are the clearest images yet of Pluto and bring the outer reaches of our solar system into clear focus for the first time.

New Zealander Dr Michele Bannister is an astronomer based at The University of Victoria in British Columbia who's scrutinising the images of Pluto with great excitement.

Pluto and Charon display striking color and brightness contrast in this composite image from 11 July. (PHOTO: NASA)

Pluto has been found to be slightly bigger than thought. (PHOTO: NASA)

Remarkable new details of Pluto’s largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken from a distance of 289,000 miles (466,000 kilometers). (PHOTO: NASA / JHUAPL)

New close-up images reveal a range of mountains rising as high as 3500 metres, believed to be relatively young - formed a mere 100 million years ago. (PHOTO: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI)

The last image of Pluto sent back by New Horizons before its closest approach to Pluto. (PHOTO: NASA/APL/SwRI)

An image from Pluto's stellar occultation on 30 June 2015. (PHOTO: NIWA)

The latest spectra from New Horizons Ralph instrument reveal an abundance of methane ice, but with striking differences from place to place across the frozen surface of Pluto. (PHOTO: NASA)

Pluto’s North Pole, Equator, and Central Meridian. (PHOTO: NASA)