NASA scientists finally seeing Pluto like never before
6:25 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 12, 2015 | Filed in: Nation


This July 14, 2015, photo provided by NASA shows a synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from NASA�s New Horizons spacecraft. The new close-up images of Pluto reveal an even more diverse landscape than scientists imagined before New Horizons swept past Pluto in July. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute via AP)

NASA scientists are seeing Pluto like they never have before.

New images from the New Horizons Spacecraft show "a diversity of landforms and complexity of processes that rival anything we’ve seen in the solar system,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).

The new images show the small planet's surface at a resolution of 400 meters (440 yards) per pixel roughly 1,100 miles away, according to NASA. They reveal a wide variety of dunes, ice and valleys throughout the surface, which "is every bit as complex as that of Mars,” said Jeff Moore, the leader of NASA's New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team.

Forthcoming images will reveal more about Pluti's moons, the report said.

Scientists were surprised to learn more about the complexity of layers in Pluto's atmospheric haze as well.

Read more here.


This July 14, 2015, photo provided by NASA shows a 220-mile (350-kilometer) wide view of Pluto taken from NASA�s New Horizons spacecraft. The new close-up images of Pluto reveal an even more diverse landscape than scientists imagined before New Horizons swept past Pluto in July. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute via AP)