Prior to the epic flyby of Pluto courtesy of NASA's New Horizons probe last July, Pluto only appeared as a fuzzy, vague spot and now, New Horizons is streaming back a deluge of data that reveals the alien world's complex, icy plains and even mountain ranges, including crucial information about the dwarf planet's tenuous atmosphere.

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The mission is now revealing unprecedented views of Pluto that are never before seen in high definition images, unraveling a complex and dynamic world where scientists once thought that this would not exist in a distant, icy region of the solar system.

Planetary scientists are now finding out for the first time the different surface features of the planet, revealing a diverse world that is now being mapped out, as scientists produced a psychedelic image of Pluto, pockmarked with blotches of vivid, contrasting colors. 

Apart from the dwarf planet looking like a work of art, this is the New Horizons team's interpretation of Pluto's hemisphere, that also serves a critical scientific purpose. Using a technique called the principal component analysis, scientists utilized this to examine the changes in surface and terrain composition.

This particular new image was produced by the onboard Ralph/MVIC color camera last July 14 when the spacecraft was making its closest approach on Pluto, some 22,000 miles away.

This false color view of the dwarf planet is direct evidence how complex the dwarf planet is. Vibrant hues and colors differentiate Pluto's various regions, as plains and canyons are immediately evident. 

It's also obvious which ones are the older regions, particularly revealed by the Pioneer Terra region in the north which is heavily cratered and the younger regions of Sputnik Planum where new ice flows, located at the western part of Tombaugh Regio, also known as Pluto's famous "heart". Shadows are also seen overcasting the bizarre, snakeskin or dragon scaled plains in the Tartarus Dorsa region.

To date, the New Horizons spacecraft is venturing more than a million miles beyond Pluto's region, into the Kuiper Belt, where precious data is now streaming back to Earth, taking a period of months for all of it to be completely transmitted. 

These new findings are presented at the Division for Planetary Sciences meeting held by the American Astronomical Society.

TagsThe Science Behind Pluto's Psychedelic Colors, dwarf planet pluto, NASA New Horizons, psychedelic colors pluto, new image pluto, psychedelic pluto, new horizons pluto, NASA new horizons pluto