the flyby showed Pluto to be home to cryo- or ice volcanoes, soaring mountains, and flat plains. Its surface is dominated by volatile ices, with large variations in color and albedo. New Horizons also took a look at Charon, the largest of Pluto’s five moons. Charon appears to be loaded with just water ice, absent the other frozen gasses found on Pluto. The most striking feature on this moon is a 600-mile long rift, longer than the Grand Canyon.

I learn from space.com that a research group is going to try to get a new geophysical definition of the word planet approved by the International Astronomical Union, and is drafting it in a way that will allow Pluto to count as a planet once more. (It lost that status in 2006 and was reclassified as a dwarf planet.)