New Horizons spacecraft of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has started sending the best data from its earlier historic Pluto flyby. The mission team, here on earth, has started the downlink phase. During the phase, the team will downlink huge amount of data gathered by the spacecraft during its flyby past the dwarf planet.

According to the United States space agency, earlier the probe was beaming back lower data-rate gathered by its instruments. But, the data sent by the spacecraft was impressive. The probe sent some close-up images of the dwarf planet’s icy mountain ranges, NASA said.

The New Horizons mission team said, “It was designed to gather as much information as it could, as quickly as it could, as it sped past Pluto and its family of moons – then store its wealth of data to its digital recorders for later transmission to Earth”. Seven weeks ago, the spacecraft recorded its main features during its flyby past Pluto, the team added.

The probe has to send a number of pictures, spectra, any some other information that it collected earlier. The data could help NASA scientists reveal how the dwarf planet was created. It could also provide interesting information about the planet’s environment and moons.

Earlier during the flyby, the spacecraft spotted some ice mountains on the planet which were about 2 miles high. The spacecraft has to send more valuable data to scientist which is still aboard it. According to NASA, the remaining data will tell scientists more than ever about the dwarf planet.