JUST RELEASED: New Photos From Pluto Flyby

By MARC TORRENCE and JUSTIN HEINZE

Scientists at the nearby Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory received their first images on Wednesday from the closest approach of the New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto.

New Horizons, which is about the size of a piano, was launched in 2006, and early Tuesday morning flew within 8,150 miles of the dwarf planet.

The spacecraft purposefully shut down all communication during that flyby in order to do as much scientific study as possible. It sent a short signal Tuesday evening that all was well and returned to the research.

On Wednesday afternoon, scientists started receiving their first other communication back, including the images above.

The first shows a closeup view of one edge of the “heart” region on Pluto, which was officially named Tombaugh Regio after Clyde Tombaugh, the scientist who discovered Pluto.

It is the first high-resolution ever taken of Pluto’s surface and shows mountains and other geologic activity.

The second is an image of Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, which features a canyon four times as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Photos via NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute