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Discovered in 1930, Pluto's
disk is much smaller than can be resolved from beneath the Earth's
turbulent atmosphere. Pluto is 2/3 the size of Earth's Moon but 1,200
times farther away.
Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface of Pluto, as it rotated through
its 6.4-day period, in late June and early July 1994.
The two smaller inset pictures at the top are actual images from
Hubble. North is up.
The larger images (bottom) are from a global map constructed through
computer image processing performed on the Hubble data.
The map, which covers 85% of the planet's surface, confirms that Pluto
has a dark equatorial belt and bright polar caps.
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