New Horizons Finds 'Halo' Craters on Pluto
Bright cluster of craters stands out in dark landscape.
— -- Nine months after the New Horizons space probe zoomed past Pluto, there's still plenty more to see of the dwarf planet.
The latest images released by NASA show stunning craters in Pluto's western Vega Terra region that create a bright halo effect from the craters' bright walls and rims juxtaposed with the region's dark landscape.
The largest crater, located in the bottom right of the photo, is 30-miles across, according to NASA.
The photos are the latest to be released as New Horizons continues to send a trove of data and photos from its July 14 flyby back to Earth. With data downlinking at a rate of about 1 to 4 kilobits per second, it's expected the entire trove of science will take one year to be transmitted back to Earth.
Launched in January 2006 on a 3-billion-mile journey to Pluto, New Horizons "phoned home" after its Pluto flyby, indicating that it had successfully navigated just 7,700 miles from the dwarf planet. It later sent back the first high-resolution images of Pluto's surface.