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NASA's official handle posted on Instagram earlier today,
“Small planetary body Saturday?
Taken by our New Horizons spacecraft at a distance of 22,025 miles (35,445 km), this image shows Pluto’s true colors, including the “heart” of the dwarf planet – a Texas-and-Oklahoma-sized glacier made of nitrogen and methane.
Classified as a dwarf planet, Pluto is just over 1,400 miles (2250 km) wide, about half the width of the United States or 2/3 the width of our Moon. With its average temperature of -387°F (-232°C) – Pluto’s surface is coated in ice made of water, methane, and nitrogen and is believed to have a rocky core and possibly a deep ocean.
Orbiting at a distance of 3.7 billion miles (5.9 billion km) – New Horizons is the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and is expected to explore the Kuiper Belt – a region that is believed to be full of small objects leftover from the creation of our solar system.
Image description: Pluto’s surface is cracked and cratered, colored white, tan, and brownish-red. White and tan descend at the top of the photo to meet the brown-red surface. The partially visible “heart” can be seen in white.”
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker