Photo: NasaWashington: The most stunning and close-up images of Pluto’s surface have been beamed back to Earth by Nasa’s New Horizons space probe. “This is the most detailed view of Pluto’s terrain you will see for a very long time,” Nasa said. The mosaic —extending across the hemisphere that faced the New Horizons spacecraft as it flew past Pluto on 14 July, last year—includes all of the highest-resolution images taken by the Nasa probe. The images in the mosaic were obtained by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) about 15,850 kilometres from Pluto, about 23 minutes before the probe’s closest approach. “It makes me want to go back on another mission to Pluto and get high-resolution images like these across the entire surface,” said Stern.

Source: Mint May 30, 2016 13:18 UTC