VOA Special English
NASA Paints Pluto Wild With Color

    2015/11/29

    The New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto and sent pictures back to Earth. NASA’s New Horizon scientists manipulated this image of Pluto. It highlights the many different areas on Pluto.

    It took nine years for the New Horizons spacecraft to travel to the edge of our solar system. The spacecraft flew nearly five billion kilometers to get there. Scientists will be studying the information is sending back to Earth for years to learn more about Pluto.

    Our Milky Way solar system began as small pieces of star-created gas and dust. Scientists are studying this dust with a student-designed instrument on the American space agency’s New Horizons spacecraft. The agency is busy collecting information from the spacecraft this week in the first-ever flyby.

    NASA, the U.S. agency that explores outer space, calls this image “Psychedelic Pluto.” Pluto is the furthest planet in our solar system. The word “psychedelic” means bright, edgy colors, and Pluto looks pretty wild in this image. The New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto and sent pictures back to Earth. NASA’s New Horizon scientists manipulated this image of Pluto. It highlights the many different areas on Pluto. The pictures were taken 35,000 kilometers away from the planet with the spacecraft’s Ralph/MVIC color camera. It was captured on July 14, 2015. On Earth, that is Bastille Day, which celebrates French independence.

    Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

    Anne Ball reported this story. Kathleen Struck was the editor.

    What do you think of Psychedelic Pluto? We want to hear from you in the Comments section and on 51VOA.COM.

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    Words in This Story

    outer space –n. the area beyond Earth’s atmosphere where there are planets and stars

    psychedelic –adj. the effects of certain drugs that bring bright colors and strange sounds.

    edgy –adj. a new and unusual way

    spacecraft –n. a vehicle used to travel in outer space

    manipulated – v. to change something

    highlight –v. to bring attention to