In 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft whizzed past Pluto up-close for the first time in history. Soon after, the Astronomy team began working with Ross A. Beyer, a Geology and Geophysics Imaging Team Affiliate for the New Horizons spacecraft, and the New Horizons team at NASA, led by Project Scientist Alan Stern, to develop the first ever full-sized Pluto globe.
This Pluto globe is a custom-produced, high-resolution globe showing in amazing detail areas on Pluto's surface like the heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio, named for Pluto's discoverer Clyde Tombaugh. The globe was developed using images captured by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015 as it flew past Pluto in its historic mission.
The globe shows a large percentage of Pluto in high resolution. However, due to Pluto's slow rotation, the New Horizons spacecraft never imaged certain parts of the planet. These areas are shown as large black regions in the southern hemisphere. Other areas are rendered in lower resolution due to the spacecrafts varying distance from Pluto when capturing the images. With this globe, you'll also discover 65+ other features identified and labeled by Astronomy Senior Editor Michael Bakich based on the New Horizons data.
The 12" desktop globe is an injection-molded plastic globe using a pair of azimuthal equidistant projections (one each for the northern and southern hemispheres) to create the maps. It is free-mount style globe with only one seam connecting the two hemispheres and comes with a 6-point clear acrylic base. Also included with the globe is a 2-sided informational flyer detailing New Horizons mission to Pluto as well as the process to develop the Pluto globe.