Awe-inspiring NASA video takes you flying over Pluto
Since its New Horizons spacecraft made its historic flyby of the distant dwarf planet Pluto earlier this month, NASA has been, bit by bit, releasing a trove of mind-blowing pictures taken from 3 billion miles away. Now it's gone one step further, stitching some of those images together to create a video that practically transports viewers to the edge of the solar system.
This video depicts a simulated flyover of two regions on Pluto -- northwestern Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain) and Hillary Montes (Hillary Mountains), a fitting tribute to Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953.
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. Acquired from a distance of 48,000 miles, the animation lets you see features as small as one-half mile across.
NASA held a press conference Friday afternoon at which they were expected to release even more new Pluto images.