NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has sent in a new set of images of Pluto that have left scientists and astronomers stunned by their stark beauty.

The new images are spread out on a scene measuring 780 miles (1,250 kilometers) across and were taken by New Horizons' wide-angle Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC) on July 14. The pictures of Pluto's crescent are more dramatic due to backlighting from the sun and offer an oblique look across the dwarf planet's landscapes, where the varied terrains and extended atmosphere are highlighted.

"This image really makes you feel you are there, at Pluto, surveying the landscape for yourself. But this image is also a scientific bonanza, revealing new details about Pluto's atmosphere, mountains, glaciers and plains," ," said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo., according to New Horizons.

"In addition to being visually stunning, these low-lying hazes hint at the weather changing from day to day on Pluto, just like it does here on Earth," said Will Grundy, lead of the New Horizons Composition team from Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Ariz., reported Deep Stuff.

 "We did not expect to find hints of a nitrogen-based glacial cycle on Pluto operating in the frigid conditions of the outer solar system. Driven by dim sunlight, this would be directly comparable to the hydrological cycle that feeds ice caps on Earth, where water is evaporated from the oceans, falls as snow, and returns to the seas through glacial flow. Pluto is surprisingly Earth-like in this regard, and no one predicted it," said Alan Howard, a member of the mission's Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, according to NASA.