Nasa scientists start receiving Pluto data after fly-by

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New close-up images of a region near Pluto's equator reveal a giant surprise - a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body. Photo: NASA

Published: 3:00am, 16 Jul 2015Updated: 10:57am, 16 Jul 2015

Scientists were receiving data that will offer the closest look ever of Pluto, after an unmanned Nasa spacecraft whizzed by the distant dwarf planet.

After a 4.8-billion-kilometre journey that took nearly 10 years, the nuclear-powered New Horizons - about the size of a baby grand piano - snapped pictures of Pluto as it hurtled by on autopilot.

Pluto's largest moon Charon. Photo: NASA

The photos will reveal details of Pluto never seen before in the history of space travel. The images were to be released by the US space agency once they were downlinked from New Horizons.

"Sending back 'first-look' data to the team 'down under'," the New Horizons team tweeted, indicating its space antenna in Canberra, Australia, was receiving information from the craft.

(From left) Principal investigator Alan Stern, project scientist Hal Weaver, investigator Will Grundy, project scientist Cathy Olkin and imaging team leader John Spencer celebrate after seeing images from the New Horizons spacecraft that passed with 7,800 miles of Pluto during a NASA news conference on July 15, 2015 in Laurel, Maryland. Photo: AFP

New Horizons is moving faster than any spacecraft ever built, at a speed of 50,000 km/h.

Some 13 hours after the fly-by, applause broke out in mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Centre outside the US capital Washington, as the spacecraft made its "phone-home" contact with earth and all systems were reported to be intact.