This Tuesday, July 14, 2015 image provided by NASA on Wednesday shows a region near Pluto's equator with a range of mountains captured by the New Horizons spacecraft. (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI via AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—Mankind’s first close-up look at Pluto did not disappoint Wednesday: The pictures showed ice mountains on Pluto about as high as the Rockies and chasms on its big moon Charon that appear six times deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Especially astonishing to scientists was the total absence of impact craters in a zoom-in shot of one otherwise rugged slice of Pluto. That suggests that Pluto is not the dead ice ball many people think, but is instead geologically active even now, its surface sculpted not by collisions with cosmic debris but by its internal heat, the scientific team reported.
Breathtaking in their clarity, the long-awaited images were unveiled in Laurel, Maryland, home to mission operations for NASA’s New Horizons, the unmanned spacecraft that paid a history-making flyby visit to the dwarf planet on Tuesday after a journey of 9½ years and 3 billion miles.
“I don’t think any one of us could have imagined that it was this good of a toy store,” principal scientist Alan Stern said at a news conference. He marveled: “I think the whole system is amazing. ... The Pluto system IS something wonderful.”
This July 13, 2015 image provided by NASA shows Pluto, seen from the New Horizons spacecraft. The United States is now the only nation to visit every single planet in the solar system. Pluto was No. 9 in the lineup when New Horizons departed Cape Canaveral, Fla, on Jan. 19, 2006 (NASA via AP)
In this handout provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the dwarf planet Pluto (R) and Charon are shown July 11, 2015. (NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI via Getty Images)
This Tuesday, July 14, 2015 image provided by NASA on Wednesday shows Pluto's largest moon, Charon, made by the New Horizons spacecraft. (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI via AP)
This Monday, July 13, 2015 combination image released by NASA shows Pluto, left, and its moon, Charon, with differences in surface material and features depicted in exaggerated colors made by using different filters on a camera aboard the New Horizons spacecraft. In this composite false-color image, the apparent distance between the two bodies has also been reduced. (NASA/APL/SwRI via AP)
