We prove that the maximal infinite step pro-nilfactor X ∞ of a minimal dynamical system (X, T ) is the topological characteristic factor in a certain sense. Namely, we show that by an almost one to one modification of π : X → X ∞ , the induced open extension π * : X * → X * ∞ has the following property: for x in a dense G δ set of X * , the orbit closureUsing results derived from the above fact, we are able to answer several open questions: (1) if (X, T k ) is minimal for some k ≥ 2, then for any d ∈ N and any 0 ≤ j < k there is a sequence(3) for any d ∈ N and any minimal system, which is an open extension of its maximal distal factor, RP [d] = AP [d] , where the latter is the regionally proximal relation of order d along arithmetic progressions.