Unbelievable high resolution images of Pluto give first ever close-up glimpse of

Scientists do not know how Pluto formed such big mountains, the tallest of which juts nearly 11,000 feet (3,350 meters) off the ground, almost as high as the Canadian Rockies.

Scientists are describing the data they’re receiving as mind-blowing.

The north polar region of Charon has a giant dark marking that NASA has been referring to as Mordor, which basically means they totally get us. “We’re seeing so many different features… there’s nothing like it”, New Horizons scientist Cathy Olkin told reporters at John Hopkins University Applied Physic Lab where the mission control centre is located.

The newest image shows the surface of Pluto.

The mountains on Pluto probably formed no more than 100 million years ago, which makes them quite young in our 4.56-billion-year-old solar system. This suggests the close-up region, which covers about one percent of Pluto’s surface, may still be geologically active today.

“It is going to send a lot of geophysicists back to the drawing board”, said Alan Stern, the New Horizons project’s principal investigator, from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Scientists were surprised to discover that Charon’s terrain has few craters. In addition, the frame shows a complete lack of impact craters on that region of Pluto, indicating a geologically young surface.

One day after the triumphant success of the New Horizon spacecraft’s journey to Pluto, NASA unveiled a breathtaking close-up image of the dwarf planet’s landscape and a new image of its largest moon, Charon.

Imaging obtained by New Horizons and transmitted to Earth early Wednesday morning also sheds light on Pluto’s outermost moon Hydra. There is a canyon estimated to be 6km-9km deep, plus a range of cliffs and troughs stretching about 950km from left to right.

The first well resolved picture of Pluto’s small moon Hydra reveals a body with a surface mostly made of water-ice.

New Horizons, a $700 million nuclear-powered spacecraft, spent much of Tuesday, July 14, snapping pictures and collecting data as it zoomed by Pluto.

Already, the trickle of images and measurements relayed from New Horizons before Tuesday’s pass by Pluto has changed scientists’ understanding of this diminutive world, which is smaller than Earth’s moon. The satellites’ surfaces might be coated with ice.