New Pluto photos leave NASA scientists 'reeling'

Christine Rushton | USA TODAY

Pluto baffled scientists, again.

New high-res photos of the dwarf planet show a terrain that NASA scientists didn't expect to find. Possible dunes, nitrogen ice flows, mountainous regions, plains and networked valleys show a surprisingly diverse geological history — the complexity resembles Mars surface, NASA said.

The new images from the New Horizons spacecraft show the surface as close as 400 yards per pixel.

“Seeing dunes on Pluto – if that is what they are – would be completely wild, because Pluto’s atmosphere today is so thin,” said scientist William B. McKinnon in an interview with NASA. “Either Pluto had a thicker atmosphere in the past, or some process we haven’t figured out is at work. It’s a head-scratcher.”

McKinnon is a geology, geophysics and imaging deputy lead form Washington University, St. Louis.

Clearer photos of Pluto's moons will come out on NASA's website on Friday. The terrain shows distinct differences between moons Chara, Nix and Hydra — Chara suffered the most damage in its life, according to NASA.

“Pluto is showing us a diversity of landforms and complexity of processes that rival anything we’ve seen in the solar system,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern in a NASA interview. “If an artist had painted this Pluto before our flyby, I probably would have called it over the top — but that’s what is actually there.”

The New Horizons spacecraft will continue to send data and photos for at least the next year. It will continue its mission and travel through the Kuiper Belt to research other objects scientists want to study.