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Latest from New Horizon scientists.

Did Pluto once have rivers and likes of liquid nitrogen? Scientists say that would explain the origin of the large flat areas on Pluto's surface. They also think the networks of grooves may have been cut by nitrogen rivers which were thawed when Pluto's climate thawed some of the nitrogen ice that covers the crust.

Wow! Michael Tabb has put together a 2-minute video summarizing the main points of what we've learned about Pluto so far. I saw it on Facebook - accompanied by an incredible collection of off-the-wall crazy comments - but found a link that goes straight to the video without the nonsense.

Pluto throws up another intriguing puzzle. These images show a strange region on Pluto with "haloed" craters

In the black and white image, you can see the bright walls and rims of the craters are a contrast to the dark floors and land between the craters.

The lower image is in false color and shows methane ice in purple and water ice in blue. So we can see that the water ice is on crater floors and the land between the craters, but the methane ice settles on the rims and walls.

Why does this happen? Why doesn't happen elsewhere? No one knows. Pluto continues to surprise.

If Pluto were still a planet, we might consider it the other red planet. But Mars is still the red planet, and Pluto must be the red dwarf planet. Mars is red because of iron oxide (rust!) in its soil. But Pluto doesn't have any soil. So why is Pluto red? Here's the answer.

Latest from New Horizons. Using the high resolution data, the team has made a mosaic of one strip of Pluto's surface. You can zoom in on it to see a variety of terrains is amazing detail.

This Astronomy Now article tells you a bit more about it and has a video that shows where the strip is located on Pluto and talks (well, labels) you through it.

It's still hard to believe that we're getting pictures like this from three billion miles away.

There was lots of excitement last year when New Horizons did its fly-by of Pluto. It's now commemorated on postage stamps. It's a souvenir sheet of 4 pictures, two each of Pluto itself and the New Horizons spacecraft.

Image credit: USPS/Antonio Alcalá © 2016 USPS

Earlier this month Chandra X-ray Observatory released some interesting results. They made four X-ray observations of Pluto which complemented the data from New Horizons and optical telescopes.

There is X-ray emission coming from Pluto.



It's over a year since the famous New Horizons flyby of Pluto and as promised, the surprises keep coming!

It's taken 15 months, but as of Friday (October 28) all of the New Horizons data from the Pluto flyby has made it back to Earth.



Here's where you can see New Horizons pictures.