Pluto moon close-up reveals 'captivating' peak-in-a-pocket

NASA has released a new image from the New Horizons spacecraft's historic Pluto flyby this week that reveals a strange feature on Pluto's largest moon,Charon.

It's a depression with a peak in the middle, and it looks to be about 50 kilometres across. NASA calls the strange feature"captivating."

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The U.S.space agency is set to release moreclose-upsofPluto and its moons at a media briefing at 1 p.m. ET Friday. It will belivestreamedon CBCNews.ca.

The first images from the flyby, released yesterday, already revealed some surprises,including mountains on Pluto and canyons onCharon.

The newest image was captured by New Horizons when it was about 79,000 kilometres fromCharon, about 1hours before its closest approach to Pluto this past Tuesday.

That was the day New Horizons became the first spacecraft to make a flyby of Pluto and its moons, capturing 1,600 images in the process.

It will take 16 months for the spacecraft, which is currently about 4.8 billion kilometres from Earth, to send all its images and data back to Earth.