NASA release new Pluto flyby video from New Horizons mission

A never-before-seen fly-by video of Pluto has been released by NASA using compiled data from the almost $900m New Horizons mission.

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of the $896m mission that saw a US spacecraft fly within 12,550 kilometres of dwarf planet, NASA and the New Horizons team have used images and data sent back to Earth to create a new, highly detailed animation of Pluto's surface.

The video, posted on Twitter, shows mountain ranges, craters and icy caverns scattered around the planet's surface.

"I think the most surprising thing is how complex that little planet is," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, told Space.com.

"It outstripped everyone's expectations, and I am certain that we’re going to need an orbiter follow-up to make sense of Pluto. Fortunately, now we know how to do that and what new instruments to bring to bear."

The flyby by New Horizons – which is currently approaching the edge of the galaxy – also revealed that the dwarf planet is slightly larger than scientists originally thought.