The latest images were actually taken back in mid July by NASA, right after New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto.
The images show icy plains, mountains, and foggy hazes all backlit by the sunset. Photographed from just over 18,000km away, the Plutonian landscape resembles the Arctic.
“This image really makes you feel you are there, at Pluto, surveying the landscape for yourself,” New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern said of one photograph.
Stern described another image as a ‘scientific bonanza’ revealing many new details about Pluto’s atmosphere, mountains, plains and glaciers.
NASA advises that the set of images provided evidence of Earth-like ‘hydrological’ cycle on Pluto involving soft and exotic ices, including nitrogen, rather than water ice.
“In addition to being visually stunning, these low-lying hazes hint at the weather changing from day to day on Pluto, just like it does here on Earth,” said Will Grundy, lead of the New Horizons Composition team.
