It was created from images taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard New Horizons as it made its closest approach on July 14. These hazes form when the UV sunlight breaks up methane particles present in Pluto’s atmosphere.

The new set of high-resolution images of the planets surface reveal ice made of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane, flowing on Sputnik Planum, the flat plains on the western hemisphere of Pluto’s Tombaugh Regio.

The mission discovered proof of unique ices flowing throughout Pluto’s floor and revealing indicators of current geologic exercise, one thing scientists hoped to seek out however didn’t anticipate. When close-up images are combined with color data from the Ralph instrument, they paint a new and surprising portrait of Pluto in which a global pattern of zones vary by latitude.

NASA researchers say they’ve only seen this kind of surface activity before on Earth and Mars.

Pluto’s atmosphere glows in this image taken as the dwarf planet passed between Earth and a distant star.

Scientists were also shocked to find ice flowing across Pluto’s surface similar to the way glaciers move across our planet’s colder regions.

Scientists determined that Pluto’s surface temperature is as low as -390 degrees Fahrenheit, which makes water ice on it extremely hard and brittle.

It also revealed hazes as high as 130 kilometres above Pluto’s surface.

“The hazes detected in this image are a key element in creating the complex hydrocarbon compounds that give Pluto’s surface its reddish hue,” said New Horizons co-investigator Michael Summers.

NASA has released a spectacular photo showing the silhouette of the dwarf planet Pluto being backlit by the Sunday.

Photo: Guests and New Horizons team members at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, count down to New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto, July 14, 2015.

NASA expects to learn even more about Pluto over the next 16 months as it sends its trove of data back to Earth.

“It’s turned out to be a scientific wonderland”, said Alan Stern, principal investigator for the $720 million mission, from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. The movement is caused by recent geological activities on the planet, which surprised the scientists. There are many exciting things about what we’re seeing from New Horizons, but one of the thoughts I enjoy most is how all of the school textbooks will need to be updated.