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martyb writes:

Phys.org has just published a story, Pluto extreme close-up best yet:

These images, which were taken while the New Horizon's probe was still 15,850 km (9,850 mi) away from Pluto (just 23 minutes before it made its closest approach), extend across the hemisphere that the probe was facing as it flew past. It shows features ranging from the cratered northern uplands and the mountainous regions in Voyager Terra before slicing through the flatlands of "Pluto's Heart" – aka. Tombaugh Regio – and ending up in another stretch of rugged highlands.

The width of the strip varies as the images pass from north to south, from more than 90 km (55 mi) across at the northern end to about 75 km (45 mi) at its southern point. The perspective also changes, with the view appearing virtually horizontal at the northern end and then shifting to an almost top-down view onto the surface by the end.

The crystal clear photographs that make up the mosaic – which have a resolution of about 80 meters (260 feet) per pixel – offer the most detailed view of Pluto's surface ever. With this kind of clarity, NASA scientists are able to discern features that were never before visible, and learn things about the kinds of geological processes which formed them.

This includes the chaotic nature of the mountains in the northern hemisphere, and the varied nature of the icy nitrogen plains across Tombaugh Regio – which go from being cellular, to non-cellular, to a cross-bedding pattern. These features are a further indication that Pluto's surface is the product of a combination of geological forces, such as cryovolcanism, sublimation, geological activity, convection between water and nitrogen ice, and interaction between the surface and atmosphere.

[...] The most distant flyby in the history of space exploration, and yet we've obtained more from this one mission than multiple flybys were able to provide from one of Earth's closest neighbors. Fascinating! And what's more, new information is expected to be coming from the New Horizons probe until this coming October. To top it off, our scientists are still not finished analyzing all the information the mission collected during its flyby.

(Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission and the Associate Vice President of Research and Development at the Southwest Research Institute)

On July 14, 2015, at 11:49 UTC, the New Horizons space craft made its closest approach of 12,500 km (7,800 mi) above the surface of Pluto with a relative velocity of 13.78 km/s (49,600 km/h; 30,800 mph). This transpired at a distance of 4.5 light-hours from Earth, i.e. approximately 4.8×10¹²km away.

Direct link to the eye candy image and a silent, but annotated, video of the fly by identifying characteristics of each region.

Original Submission