Replay Video SETTINGS OFF HD HQ SD LO Skip Ad

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has sent back what the space agency has described as the best close-ups of the planet that humans may see for decades.

Taken from a range of just 17,000 kilometres, the new images were snapped during the spacecraft's closest approach to Pluto, from its flyby of the dwarf planet in July this year.

They document an 80-kilometre strip of the planet's surface, offering an intimate perspective of its cratered, mountainous and glacial terrains.

"New Horizons thrilled us during the July flyby with the first close images of Pluto, and as the spacecraft transmits the treasure trove of images in its onboard memory back to us, we continue to be amazed by what we see," said John Grunsfeld, former astronaut and associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

The photos scan from Pluto's jagged horizon about 800 kilometres north-west of the informally named Sputnik Planum, across the al-Idrisi mountains, over the shoreline of Sputnik, and across its icy plains.

One photo of the al-Idrisi mountains, show the planet's water-ice crust.

© Supplied/NASA A photo showing great blocks of Pluto's water-ice crust that appear jammed together in the informally named al-Idrisi mountains.

"The new details revealed here, particularly the crumpled ridges in the rubbly material surrounding several of the mountains, reinforce our earlier impression that the mountains are huge ice blocks that have been jostled and tumbled and somehow transported to their present locations," said John Spencer, a New Horizons science team member.

Another reveals additional details of Pluto's rugged, icy cratered plains, including layering in the interior walls of many craters.

"Impact craters are nature's drill rigs, and the new, highest-resolution pictures of the bigger craters seem to show that Pluto's icy crust, at least in places, is distinctly layered," said William McKinnon, deputy lead of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team.

"Looking into Pluto's depths is looking back into geologic time, which will help us piece together Pluto's geological history."

© Supplied/NASA A photo revealing new details of Pluto's rugged, icy cratered plains, including layering in the interior walls of many craters. According to New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, the photos arrived quicker than in past flyby missions.

"Nothing of this quality was available for Venus or Mars until decades after their first flybys, yet at Pluto we're there already — down among the craters, mountains and ice fields — less than five months after flyby," he said.

"The science we can do with these images is simply unbelievable."

Mission scientists expect another set of photos from New Horizons in coming days.