More discoveries about Pluto: New Horizons finds second icy mountain range and new moon

Pluto continues to make headlines.

Many people around the world have been celebrating the successful flyby, from the New Horizons NASA program, to the farthest planet in the solar system, Pluto. After the initial success and discovery of the first icy mountain range, the spacecraft found another equally icy, but less tall, range on the ninth planet. An irregularly-shaped jellybean-like moon was also found, with a region hinted with red, despite the generally gray color of the satellite.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - Named as the Norgay Montes (Norgay Mountains), the icy mountain range was discovered by the New Horizons on July 15, located west of the Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain) at the heart-shaped region, dubbed as the Tombaugh Regio.

The mountain peaks are approximately one to 1.5 kilometers high, about the height of the Appalachian Mountains in the U.S., and sit at 110 kilometers northwest of the range. New images from the space probe show the western region of the Tombaugh Regio's sharper, well-defined topography, sent to Earth on July 20. This was acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) from about a distance of 77,000km away on July 14.

"There is a pronounced difference in texture between the younger, frozen plains to the east and the dark, heavily-cratered terrain to the west. There's a complex interaction going on between the bright and the dark materials that we're still trying to understand," said the leader of the Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI) of New Horizons, Jeff Moore.

Experts speculate the darker region emerged billions of years ago, in contrast to the brighter area, which is perhaps about 100-million-years-old - relatively young geologically.

The third discovered moon on Pluto, Nix, was also captured with a color-enhanced image that reveals a region with a distinct red color. The jellybean-shaped moon's surface was overall gray in color.

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