NASA Releases Mosaic Showing Extreme Close-Up Of Pluto

(Photo : NASA) NASA's New Horizons spacecraft's main goal has been to monitor Pluto, and last year, it flew close to the dwarf planet. NASA has recently released the images captured by it.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft's main goal has been to monitor Pluto, and last year, it flew close to the dwarf planet. NASA has recently released the images captured by it.

According to NASA scientists, the photos captured by the spacecraft are the most detailed available to date. The images were released 10 months after they were taken in July.

A NASA spokesman said: "This mosaic strip - extending across the hemisphere that faced the New Horizons spacecraft as it flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015 - now includes all of the highest-resolution images taken by the NASA probe."

The images have resolutions of about 80 meters per pixel. The mosaic provides NASA the best opportunity to analyze the detail of different parts of Pluto's terrain.

"This new image product is just magnetic," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. "It makes me want to go back on another mission to Pluto and get high-resolution images like these across the entire surface."

The mosaic was created using many images from the spacecraft's camera. They show what Pluto looks like from one end to the other.

"The perspective changes greatly along the strip: at its northern end, the view looks out horizontally across the surface, while at its southern end, the view looks straight down onto the surface", said the space agency.

The NASA probe has captured many images of the dwarf planet, but scientists are most attracted to the latest photos due to how detailed the photos are. The probe is currently 235 million miles away from Pluto, but scientists think that this is not currently a problem.

"New Horizons may be millions of miles beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt right now, but that hasn't stopped the spacecraft from continuing to beam back glorious imagery of its encounter with our solar system's weirdest little ice world. A new NASA video reveals the most detailed images of Pluto's surface yet-and they're spellbinding," according to a news report published by Gizmodo.

Until another Pluto project is funded, it seems these images will be the best available. See the mosaic here.