New close-up images of Pluto reveal a bewildering variety of surface features that have scientists reeling because of their range and complexity. This synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from our New Horizons spacecraft, shows what you would see if you were approximately 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) above Pluto's equatorial area, looking northeast over the dark, cratered, informally named Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth, expanse of icy plains informally called Sputnik Planum. The entire expanse of terrain seen in this image is 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) across. The images were taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers). Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute #nasa #pluto #plutoflyby #newhorizons#solarsystem #nasabeyond #science