NASA releases stunning Pluto pics showing two strange moons shaped like 'strawberry jelly beans'

NASA

Pluto's moons: Nix on the left and Hydra on the right

NASA has revealed a set of stunning pictures showing the strange surfaces of Nix and Hydra, two of Pluto's five moons.
The images were snapped by the New Horizons spacecraft and show that Nix looks like a "strawberry jelly bean", according to space experts. At 26 miles long and 22 miles wide, Nix is one of Pluto’s smaller moons.

 

Mountains near the equator on Pluto, snapped by the New Horizons spacecraft

          And with a kiss-shaped crater already spotted, the moon has caught the attention of mission scientists.
Carly Howett of Southwest Research Institute said : "This observation is so tantalising, I’m finding it hard to be patient for more Nix data to be downlinked."
The information she is waiting for includes details of the chemical make-up of the tiny moon, which will shed light on the red colouration of the crater.
             Hydra has a shape which is at complete odds with our classical image of a moon.
It is the larger of the two, measuring 34 miles by 25 miles, with an uneven surface and two huge craters.

NASA

New Horizons probe obtains more detail of Pluto's surface

          Ted Styrk, mission scientist from Roane State Community College in Tennessee, added:
"Before last week Hydra was just a faint point of light, so it's a surreal experience to see it become an actual place, as we see its shape and spot recognizable features on its surface for the first time."
         The snaps were captured with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager or LORRI, which is the mission’s high-definition camera. They were made when the probe was 102,000 miles and 143,000 miles away from Nix and Hydra respectively. Pluto has five moons in total.