New Horizons: Images reveal ice mountains on Pluto

[Valin]

BBC

Paul Rincon

July 15 2015

 

Pluto has mountains made of ice that are as high as those in the Rockies, images from the New Horizons probe reveal. They also show signs of geological activity on Pluto and its moon Charon.

 

On Wednesday, scientists presented the first pictures acquired by the New Horizons probe during its historic flyby of the dwarf planet. The team has also named the prominent heart-shaped region on Pluto after the world's discoverer Clyde Tombaugh.

 

The spacecraft sped past the dwarf planet on Tuesday, getting as close as 12,500km and grabbing a huge volume of data. Mission scientist John Spencer told journalists that the first close-up image of Pluto's surface showed a terrain that had been resurfaced by some geological process - such as volcanism - within the last 100 million years.

 

(Snip)

 

 

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