NASA shows new pictures of Pluto – FORTUNE

(CNN) – The NASA on Wednesday unveiled new images of Pluto captured a day earlier by the spacecraft New Horizons

.

“Yesterday, the US space program took another historic step for mankind. Today, the team of New Horizons shows clearly what before was a point of light blur “spokesman Dwayne Brown in a press conference.

The photographs taken by the spacecraft transmitted to Earth and are taken from the closest point to Pluto that could reach the ship, a milestone in the history of space exploration.

Among the images sent is that of Charon, the largest moon of Pluto.

As a detailed picture of the surface of the dwarf planet where you can see that there are icy mountains up to 3,500 meters high, which probably formed over 100 million years ago, the agency said.

The full mission and recognition of what is considered the classic solar system, and makes the United States the first country to send a spacecraft to all the planets from Mercury to Pluto. The flight took 50 years after the Mariner 4 probe achieved the first approach to Mars and send back the first pictures from another planet taken from close in space.

“I think it’s very appropriate that in this 50th anniversary we complete the initial recognition of the planets with the exploration of Pluto,” said Alan Stern, principal investigator for the mission.

With photos Wednesday, the ship New Horizons also provides a feast of new data for scientists.

In the weeks before arrival at Pluto weeks, NASA and its partner in the project, the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, published several images. The first showed only bright patches were becoming larger.

The images and information on Wednesday are just the beginning, because the ship will be sending to Earth the equivalent of 16 months of data.

On Tuesday, New Horizons released the closest image that so far has Pluto and which seems to have a heart in the center, the region will be baptized as Clyde Tombaugh, in memory of astrophysicist who in 1930 discovered the existence of dwarf planet, NASA said.

Part of the ashes of Tombaugh traveling on the ship that toured nine years through the solar system to finally fly over Pluto and will continue its space exploration deeper into the Kuiper Belt.