Full Story: latimes.com

Pluto images show a dynamic world

Newly computer-processed images of Pluto taken by the Hubble Space Telescope show that it is not simply a ball of ice and rock, but a dynamic world that undergoes dramatic atmospheric changes produced by its seasons, NASA said Thursday.

The images show an icy and dark molasses-colored world that is highly mottled and whose northern hemisphere is now getting brighter.

The images show that the body -- once considered the ninth and most distant planet but now reduced to the status of dwarf planet -- also turned noticeably redder in the two years after the turn of the millennium for reasons that are not clear, and that its equator features a large bright spot whose origin remains a mystery.