Pluto Panorama
A hazy Pluto is seen from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

New Horizons continues to reveal new surprises on Pluto. In the latest round of photos downlinked to NASA on Sept. 13, Pluto's hazy atmosphere is beautifully backlit by the sun. The dwarf planet's surface features are shown in great detail in the photos released Thursday.

Pluto's backlit panorama covers an area of 780 miles in stunning detail. Pluto's ice mountains, frozen planes and distorted features are highlights of the latest images. "This image really makes you feel you are there, at Pluto, surveying the landscape for yourself,” Alan Stern, New Horizons Principal Investigator, said in a statement. “But this image is also a scientific bonanza, revealing new details about Pluto’s atmosphere, mountains, glaciers and plains."

Pluto Mountains and Plains
Pictured are some 230 miles of Pluto's ice mountains and plains: The large frozen plain is informally called Sputnik Planum. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

New Horizons is more than 77 million kilometers (close to 48 million miles) from the dwarf planet, but it's science mission is far from over. The spacecraft is sending data back to Earth from its scientific instruments and onboard cameras. NASA is busy analyzing the information collected by New Horizons' scientific instruments and onboard cameras.

In addition to being beautiful, the photos reveal new aspects of what it's like on Pluto. Shadows from the setting sun reveal near-surface haze indicating daily weather changes on the dwarf planet. The photos also reveal an "Earth-like" hydrological cycle -- where water evaporates and becomes precipitation again and again -- playing out on Pluto. Instead of water, it's frozen nitrogen.

Pluto Haze
Near-surface haze on Pluto may indicate daily weather patterns. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Previous photos showed off Pluto's varied and complex surface. There could be dunes -- which could indicate wind -- on the dwarf planet, ice plains, ice flows, craters and several mountain ranges. Pluto's moons continue to surprise and delight researchers. There's a dark area in Charon's north pole that remains a mystery. Pluto's small moons Nix and Hydra were also seen for the first time in a previous photo series.

Pluto Heart
Pluto's "heart" is pictured in close detail. The box indicates the area where NASA observed the hydrological cycle on the dwarf planet. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Pluto_sept11
This synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, shows what you would see if you were 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). NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Charon
This is an image of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft 10 hours before its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 290,000 miles (470,000 kilometers). It is a recently downlinked, much higher-quality version of a Charon image released on July 15. Charon, which is 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) in diameter, displays a surprisingly complex geological history, including tectonic fracturing; relatively smooth, fractured plains in the lower right; several enigmatic mountains surrounded by sunken terrain features on the right side; and heavily cratered regions in the center and upper left portion of the disk. There are also complex reflectivity patterns on Charon’s surface, including bright and dark crater rays, and the conspicuous dark north polar region at the top of the image. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Pluto