Pluto and Charon as never seen before

A speedy space probe barreled past Pluto for a one-shot flyby Tuesday, becoming the first spacecraft to ever visit the frozen, reddish world at the solar system’s distant frontier.

Nearly six months after NASA’s New Horizons probe zoomed past Pluto, just one quarter of the data stored on board has made its way back to waiting scientists, revealing a surprisingly varied terrain that includes glacial flows and steep mountains of frozen water floating in a “sea” of slush-like nitrogen ice.

Marc Buie, Occultation Team Lead, reveals what we know so far about the shape of Ultima Thule as New Horizons races towards its encounter with the Kuiper Belt object.