The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is pretty strict about naming conventions. Fuzzy blobs of colour hint at interesting surface features. They show Pluto’s surface at different times during a single rotation. The images on the right were taken by the Hubble space telescope. Pluto’s surface features will reveal the history of its life in the alien conditions at the outer-most edge of our Solar system. Pluto is one of the last large planetesimals in the Solar system to have its surface imaged in detail. discuss a naming system for Pluto and its moons. It will map the surface of the Plutonian system in unprecedented detail, revealing craters and other surface features for the first time. In preparation for the deluge of newly discovered craters, mountains, crevasses and other surface features, Mamajek et al.
In July of this year (2015), NASA’s New Horizons mission will fly past Pluto and its moons. In fact, it only covers 3 of Hubble’s pixels! Pluto is around 2,400 km in diameter, or 2/3 times the size of the Earth’s moon and is 40 times further from the Sun that we are, so it’s pretty tiny in Hubble’s field of view. Hubble images of Pluto, taken at different times over a Plutonian day.
