Pluto has blown the minds of scientists this week as NASA's New Horizons team revealed new findings about the dwarf planet.

The recent findings includes a close-up of a vast crack, an icy plain and the discovery of a tail that is caused by the planet's escaping atmosphere, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

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"What a historic week!," Jim Green said, the director of Planetary Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington as he opened the press conference, Friday, July 17. While the mission's principal investigator Alan Stern said, "We've just had the most fun. Pluto's becoming a brand. It sells itself. You don't really have to work that hard!"

"I'm a little biased, but I think the Solar System saved the best for last!," Stern continued.

The discoveries about Pluto was unveiled after the New Horizon's historic fly-by the planet this week. What the scientists once thought to be just a yellow blob is more than what they have expected, it came to life and it's a fascinating discovery, according to The Daily Galaxy.

New Horizons has also discovered a region of ice cold, dense ionized gas tens of thousands of miles beyond Pluto. The Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) revealed that this cavity is populated by Nitrogen gas forming a "plasma tail" of undetermined structure and length, Canada Journal noted.

During the press conference, the first image shown was a heavily pixelated photo of Pluto's tiny moons, Nix, and another photo showed an excess of the carbon monoxide gas over the bright, heart-shaped region.

"I'm still having to remind myself to take deep breaths," NASA Ames geologist Jeff Moore stated. "I mean the landscape is just astoundingly amazing. We've discovered vast craterless plains with some strange story to tell."

In addition to the discoveries, the craterless plain is in stark contrast to the icy mountains of the dwarf planet, which is the size of the Rockies.  

"Creating kind of the same sorts of patterns you see when you look at the surface of a boiling pot of oatmeal, or like the blobs in a lava lamp," Moore added.

Meanwhile, NASA is still anxiously waiting for New Horizons' additional data. Since there's still a lot of work to be done, the team hopes to learn more about the ice on Pluto's surface.

"I think Pluto's becoming a brand. It sort of sells itself and we don't really have to work all that hard," Stern added.

TagsPluto tail, Pluto, new horizons spacecraft, NASA new horizons pluto image