First Pluto data reveals lots of terrain that is “not easy to explain”

Since its discovery 85 years ago, Pluto has been nothing more than a tiny dot of light. Thanks to NASA’s New Horizons mission, this is no longer the case. After a 9.5 year, 3.5 billion mile journey, a spacecraft the size of a baby grand piano has revolutionized our understanding of the icy world. The first close-up images of the Pluto system are proving to be every bit as exciting as the science team had hoped. Principal investigator Alan Stern said in a media briefing today, “The Solar System definitely saved the best for last.”

With the data beamed down so far, everything we can now see of Pluto and its five moons is changing the way planetary scientists view these distant, icy worlds. Not only does Pluto harbor 11,000 ft high mountains composed of frozen water ice, but its surface and the surface of its largest moon, Charon, are surprisingly devoid of large impact craters. This indicates to scientists that both bodies could be geologically active.

The mountains—thought to be no more than 100 million years old—are very young compared to the age of the Solar System, and their average height rivals that of the Rocky Mountains found here on Earth. It’s too early to determine how they formed, but their presence was a surprise to scientists. “This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the Solar System,” said Jeff Moore of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics, and Imaging Team (GGI) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.