Hubble’s portrait of everybody’s favorite ex-planet

While the Hubble space telescope has provided the world with some of
the most amazing images ever taken of the very edge of our universe, it has now revealed details of
something much closer. The newest images, set to appear in the
March issue of the Astronomical Journal, are of everybody’s favorite
ex-planet—now dwarf planet—Pluto. The images reveal an “icy and
dark molasses-colored, mottled world that is undergoing seasonal
changes in its surface color and brightness.”

The changes in color are believed to be the result of seasonal
variations where surface ice sublimes from one pole and migrates to the
other. This transformation occurred over a short, two-year period from
2000 to 2002—that’s less than one percent of the total orbital
period/seasonal cycle of Pluto. These photos are the sharpest and
clearest pictures taken of the planet to date, and will remain so until
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft closes within six months of travel time to this distant object—something that won’t occur until 2015.

Click here to see the full photo map of Pluto’s surface from
the Hubble Space Telescope.