Here's What Pluto's Frozen 'Heart' Looks Like in False Color

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The "heart" on Pluto is and other surface details are clearly visible in this stunning false-color view of the dwarf planet captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft this month. NASA unveiled the image on July 24.
The "heart" on Pluto is and other surface details are clearly visible in this stunning false-color view of the dwarf planet captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft this month. NASA unveiled the image on July 24. (Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

The mysterious face of Pluto is beginning to yield some of its secrets in this stunning false-color image from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which scientists can use to detect subtle differences in the dwarf planet's surface, including its icy "heart."

The new image of Pluto, released on Thursday (July 23), clearly shows the now familiar heart-shaped region nicknamed Tombaugh Regio. The photo is actually a combination of observations from the main camera on New Horizons (called LORRI) and the probe's visible/infrared imager (known as Ralph) which provided data for the colors in the view. The enhanced colors allow scientists to identify differences in the composition and texture of Pluto's surface, according to a NASA image description. 

"The 'heart of the heart,' Sputnik Planum, is suggestive of a source region of ices,'" NASA officials wrote in the image description. Sputnik Planum is the vast plains region inside Pluto's heart-shaped feature. "The two bluish-white 'lobes' that extend to the southwest and northeast of the 'heart' may represent exotic ices being transported away from Sputnik Planum." [Take a video tour of Pluto's 'heart' in false color]

The New Horizons spacecraft captured this view in the days leading up to its historic July 14 flyby of Pluto. At the time, New Horizons was about 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers) from the dwarf planet. Four images from the probe's LORRI camera (short for Longe Range Reconnaissance Imager) were combined with the color data from the Ralph instrument to create this view. 

Pluto's heart-shaped region was named Tombaugh Region in honor of the late astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930 while working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

NASA will unveil more new photos of Pluto from New Horizons later today at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) during a press conference at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. You can watch the Pluto webcast live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. 

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Tariq Malik
Tariq Malik
Editor-in-Chief

Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik.