Way out there, on the frozen fringe of the solar system, dwarf planet Pluto is stunningly alive.

New images returned from NASA's New Horizons are spacecraft are unveiling a world that's evolving in slow motion: Glaciers made of nitrogen ice creep across its surface, hazes cycle through its puffy atmosphere, and dark organic compounds rain down. (Read "Pluto at Last" in National Geographic magazine.)

"Pluto has a very interesting history, and there is a lot of work that we need to do to understand this very complicated place," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern said during a press briefing Friday.

It's been just ten days since New Horizons flew by Pluto and its five known moons on July