What would it be like to land on Pluto? We might not know anytime soon, but thanks to a new NASA video, we can get a pretty good idea.
Released yesterday, the movie stitches together 100 images taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it approached Pluto in July 2015. The images begin from a distance, showing Pluto and its moon Charon, before “landing” on a shoreline of a region rich in nitrogen ice.
The image is a color version of one released by NASA last year, giving us a better glimpse at what it would be like to approach and touch down on Pluto. Color was added by the Ralph color camera aboard New Horizons, giving the best simulation of what the surface looks like.
It took New Horizons more than nine years to reach Pluto, traveling 3 billion miles (4.8 billion kilometers) in the process. Now, it is on its way out of the Solar System, and on its way to visit an object in the Kuiper Belt on January 1, 2019.
Until then, let’s remember that incredible flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015. Check out the video below.