Pluto Simulation Takes You To The Dwarf Planet (VIDEO)

Pluto Simulation Lets You Explore The Dwarf Planet (VIDEO)

Last week, HuffPost Tech took readers inside a black hole. Now, we're taking you to one of the solar system's best-known dwarf planets: Pluto.

National Geographic has created a simulation of man's landing on Pluto that to show you what it would be like to explore the icy planet's climate and seasons.

What would you encounter there? What would it look like? Explore the plutonium breezes, nitrogen frost, and massive cliffs visitors to Pluto would have to grapple with.

National Geographic explains:

Pluto is so far away from Earth that it is a mere pinprick of light in our powerful telescopes. Locked in a gravitational dance with its largest moon Charon, this frozen outpost is simply the first discovered body in an unseen swarm of icy worlds. Learn what it would take for humans to journey to the uncharted limits of our solar neighborhood and what NASA scientists think we'll find when we get there

.

Recent photos from the Hubble Telescope indicate that Pluto is much more than a 'ball of ice and rock,' but a 'dynamic world that undergoes dramatic atmospheric changes.' The color of the planet has been changing, and the mass of the atmosphere seems to have doubled over time.

The AP reports:

The Hubble pictures underscore that Pluto is not simply a ball of ice and rock but a dynamic world that undergoes dramatic atmospheric changes. These are driven by seasonal changes that are as much propelled by the planet's 248-year elliptical orbit as its axial tilt, unlike Earth where the tilt alone drives seasons. The seasons are very asymmetric because of Pluto's elliptical orbit. Spring transitions to polar summer quickly in the northern hemisphere because Pluto is moving faster along its orbit when it is closer to the sun.

Explore Pluto in the video below!

WATCH

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot