NASA releases high-resolution images of Pluto

The Mountainous Shoreline of Sputnik Planum. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

NASA has released new images showing "the best close-ups of Pluto that humans may see for decades."

The photos, captured using technology on board the New Horizons spacecraft, show crated, mountainous and glacial terrains from the planet situated three billion miles away from Earth.

New Horizons conducted a six-month-long reconnaissance flyby study of Pluto and its moons this summer culminating with Pluto closest approach on 14 July.

The images have taken several months to be transmitted to NASA, who have now released the "stunning" shots to the public.

The images were captured with the telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard New Horizons, about 15 minutes before New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto – from a range of just 10,000 miles (17,000 km).

LORRI snapped pictures every three seconds while the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC) aboard New Horizons was scanning the surface.

This mode requires unusually short exposures to avoid blurring the images.

Pluto’s rugged, icy cratered plains. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

"Impact craters are nature's drill rigs, and the new, highest-resolution pictures of the bigger craters seem to show that Pluto's icy crust, at least in places, is distinctly layered,” said William McKinnon, deputy lead of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team, from Washington University in St. Louis. "Looking into Pluto’s depths is looking back into geologic time, which will help us piece together Pluto's geological history.”

Pluto’s ‘Badlands’: This highest-resolution image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft shows how erosion and faulting have sculpted this portion of Pluto’s icy crust into rugged badlands topography. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Mission scientists expect more imagery from this set over the next several days, showing even more terrain at this highest resolution.

The New Horizons spacecraft is expected to head farther into the Kuiper Belt to examine another of the ancient, icy mini-worlds in the vast region, at least a billion miles beyond Neptune’s orbit.