NASA's New Horizons spacecraft delivered more images of Pluto, this time a close-up view of the dwarf planet's cracked, icy surface.
NASA previously released an image of Pluto's icy mountain range, but the new images show the dwarf planet's surface in greater detail than previously achieved.
"This terrain is not easy to explain," Jeff Moore, New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging chief at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said in a press release. "The discovery of vast, craterless, very young plains on Pluto exceeds all pre-flyby expectations."
When New Horizons first released its portrait of Pluto, one region in particular appeared to be shaped like a giant heart. The new image of Pluto's surface is a zoomed-in look at that region.
"With the flyby in the rearview mirror, a decade-long journey to Pluto is over - but, the science payoff is only beginning," Jim Green, director of Planetary Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C., said in the release. "Data from New Horizons will continue to fuel discovery for years to come."
Unveiled in another press release, NASA showed off a view of Pluto's heart-shaped region with New Horizons' Ralph instrument. NASA named the region after Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who first discovered Pluto.
"New Horizons' Ralph instrument revealed evidence of carbon monoxide ice," NASA said in a statement. "The contours indicate that the concentration of frozen carbon monoxide increases towards the center of the 'bull's eye.'"
