§Week4太空新發現

A range of majestic雄偉mountains meets with endless plains. On Pluto冥王星, billions of miles from the sun's reach, they are likely both made of ice.

And this week, we are seeing close-ups特寫of them with unprecedente空前的clarity. Finally, two months after the New Horizons spacecraft宇宙飛船flew by the dwarf矮人planet at close range, new higher resolution images have arrived.

It has taken that long for NASA to download them. The transfer speed of data from the spacecraft at 2,000 bits per second makes an old dial-up modem with its 56,000 bits per second look like a speed demon.

It will take NASA a year to transfer all the photos and data. The dump傾倒began arriving over the Labor Day weekend. Some of the pictures that NASA released were not single snapshots快照but compilations編譯synthesized合成 from multiple多種photos.

Judging by the first, crisp digital close-up images, the wait was worth it. They reveal a planet not frozen in place but with a complex landscape景觀still developing.

Pluto probe gets new assignment

Dunes? 沙丘

The photos taken from New Horizons' closest approach of Pluto on July 14 -- at about 50,000 million miles away -- reveal some surprises.

For example, there may even be dunes blown up by winds. But that would seem impossible on a planet with barely an atmosphere.

"Seeing dunes on Pluto -- if that is what they are -- would be completely wild, because Pluto's atmosphere today is so thin," said astronomer天文學家William B. McKinnon from Washington University in St. Louis.

"Either Pluto had a thicker atmosphere in the past, or some process we haven't figured out is at work. It's a head-scratcher."

And those gargantuan blocks of ice the size of mountains might be floating in flows of frozen nitrogen.

Key words

majestic雄偉

Pluto冥王星

close-ups特寫

unprecedented空前的

spacecraft宇宙飛船

dump傾倒

snapshots快照

dunes沙丘

synthesized合成

compilations編譯

Who: NASA

When : July 14

Where: Pluto

Why NO mention

What:NASA took a snapshots about Pluto

How: New Horizons spacecraft flew by the dwarf planet at close range