NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft just sent back its first color image of the dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon. It’s a blurry glow taken by the craft's Ralph color imager from 71 million miles away, but it’s a sight to behold nonetheless.
NASA launched New Horizons in 2006 to study Pluto and other objects in the Kuiper belt—the Solar System beyond Neptune, from about 2.5 to 4.5 billion miles from the sun. New Horizons already snapped some epic images of Jupiter back in 2006 and 2007. And on July 14, the spacecraft will fly past Pluto for an up-close-and-personal photo shoot.
The research team back at NASA hopes to use those shots to better understand the physical landscape and geography of the dwarf planet, including some features as small as a couple of miles. In the intervening weeks astronomical voyeurs can expect to see tons more images of Pluto and its moons taken while the spacecraft is on approach. Read more here.