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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

The first comprehensive set of papers describing results from the New Horizons [jhuapl.edu] Pluto flyby were published in the most recent volume of Science [nasa.gov].

“These five detailed papers completely transform our view of Pluto – revealing the former ‘astronomer’s planet’ to be a real world with diverse and active geology, exotic surface chemistry, a complex atmosphere, puzzling interaction with the sun and an intriguing system of small moons,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado.

NASA conveniently summarized the findings [nasa.gov] from these papers that cover observations of a broad range of surface and atmospheric properties.

“Observing Pluto and Charon up close has caused us to completely reassess thinking on what sort of geological activity can be sustained on isolated planetary bodies in this distant region of the solar system, worlds that formerly had been thought to be relics little changed since the Kuiper Belt’s formation,” said Jeff Moore, lead author of the geology paper from NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.

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