"We've learned that the view of four inner rocky planets and four outer gas giants and one misfit Pluto is wrong. Now we understand Pluto's context." -Alan Stern
After a 9 year journey to Pluto, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto this past July, taking so much data that it will take a full 16 months to send it all back. The first of the highest resolution photos ever taken were released by NASA earlier today.
Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.
Even though the data has yet to be scientifically analyzed, a visual inspection teaches us a number of things about its sedimentary history, its active geology and its transient, eroding mountainous terrain. Perhaps the best part: Pluto is the prototype for the most common type of world in the Universe, even though it's not a planet anymore.
Beautiful