Fly Over Pluto's Mountains

(tinkling music)

For all of the hullabaloo

around New Horizons' Pluto fly-by,

it's not like us Earth-bound mortals

will ever get the chance to actually fly by.

We won't get to experience the glory of drifting over

the dwarf planet's icy surface.

No, that honor belongs to a tiny space probe,

now on its way to the outer edges of the Kuiper Belt.

But this NASA animation gets you pretty close.

Just take in those mountain peaks,

up to 11,000 feet tall according to scientists,

and most likely made of ice, not rock.

There isn't a single impact crater in the range,

which means they're super young,

at least in terms

of the solar system's geological timescale:

less than one million years old.

The other amazing part of the surface is pretty much

the exact opposite.

A vast, unmarked plain that we know best as Pluto's heart,

just north of those icy crags.

They sort of look like frozen mud crags

with each segment spanning about 12 miles across

and broken up by mysterious troughs.

The astronomers are still trying to figure out

what geological processes might have formed

these strange features,

which are coated by frozen methane and nitrogen.

Humans may never get to explore Pluto in person,

but at least now we know what we'd need if we did.

A good pair of crampons, and an ice ax.