{"id":616275,"date":"2026-09-06T12:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T12:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616275\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T12:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T12:52:16","slug":"apod-2026-september-6-pluto-in-enhanced-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616275\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 September 6 \u2013 Pluto in Enhanced Color"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p-md margin-0 media-detail-hero__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExplanation: <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/dwarf-planets\/pluto\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pluto<\/a> is more colorful than we can see. Color data and high-resolution images of our Solar System&#8217;s most famous <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/dwarf-planets\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dwarf planet<\/a>, taken by the robotic <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/new-horizons\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Horizons spacecraft<\/a> during its <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/fap\/ap150714.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">flyby in 2015 July<\/a>, have been digitally combined to give an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-article\/rich-color-variations-of-pluto\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">enhanced-color view<\/a> of this ancient world sporting an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/cats\/comments\/lnfbzm\/dear_smile_please_like_me\/#lightbox\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">unexpectedly young<\/a> surface. The <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/photojournal\/the-rich-color-variations-of-pluto\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">featured enhanced color image<\/a> is not only <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/fap\/ap130401.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">esthetically pretty<\/a> but scientifically useful, making surface regions of differing chemical composition visually distinct. For example, the light-colored heart-shaped <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/images\/pia19842-a-mountain-range-within-plutos-heart\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tombaugh Regio<\/a> on the lower right is clearly shown here to be divisible into two regions that are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC7yXXCSR3_UB12gNWETiygA\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">geologically different<\/a>, with the leftmost lobe, <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/27905411\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sputnik Planitia<\/a>, also appearing unusually smooth. After Pluto, New Horizons continued on, shooting <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/fap\/ap191118.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">past asteroid Arrokoth<\/a> in 2019 with enough speed to escape our <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/solar-system\/solar-system-facts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Solar<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/spaceplace.nasa.gov\/menu\/solar-system\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">System<\/a> completely.<\/p>\n<p>APOD&#8217;s main NASA site is <a href=\"https:\/\/asterisk.apod.com\/viewtopic.php?t=45023\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">moving<\/a> : From <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">apod.nasa.gov<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/apod\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">science.nasa.gov\/apod<\/a><br \/>Tomorrow&#8217;s picture: open space\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explanation: Pluto is more colorful than we can see. Color data and high-resolution images of our Solar System&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[243471,61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-616275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apod","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}