Pluto's glowing halo shines in new NASA image
Just 15 minutes after NASA's New Horizon's spacecraft made a historic flyby of Pluto, it looked back and captured the distant dwarf planet in a breathtaking shot backlit by the sun.
NASA has been collecting images since the first ones arrived back at Earth in July, and an earlier version of this picture showed only part of the glowing halo. The New Horizons science team processed the image, completing the entire, wide-angle view.
Along the left, the nighttime side shows the shadowy silhouettes of Pluto's rugged plateaus. On the right, sunlight reveals 11,000-foot mountains bordering the icy plains of Sputnik Planum, inside the famous "heart" of Pluto.
Taken from 11,000 miles away, the image shows a halo of of haze in the atmosphere. More than one dozen layers surround the dwarf planet at altitudes of 60 miles or more.