new Horizons 9 17 15

The smooth, icy stretch known as Sputnik Planum may be coated with nitrogen ice that has been moved through Pluto's atmosphere and deposited on the uplands seen in the right region of this image.

Fifteen minutes after New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto, the spacecraft glanced back and caught this near-sunset shot of the dwarf planet's rugged mountains, Norgay Montes, which climb up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) and smooth plains of Sputnik Planum. This picture was taken from 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) away from Pluto.

This scene looks more like the glaciers of Antarctica or Greenland than it does Pluto. New Horizons scientists believe the ice flows onto the uplands of Sputnik Planum on the right side of the image, from the nearby mountains. The flows fronts in blue appear to pass through the several-mile-wide valleys shown by the red arrows. However, scientists still don't understand the pits.