Image Gallery: first colour photo of Pluto from New Horizons

The first colour photo of Pluto and its largest moon Charon taken by New Horizons. Photo Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
The first colour photo of Pluto and its largest moon Charon taken by New Horizons on April 9, 2015. The spacecraft will make its closest approach on July 14, 2015. Photo Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

This is the first colour photo of the dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon taken by the New Horizons spacecraft. It was taken on April 9, 2015, from a distance of about 71 million 115 million kilometers (71 million miles).

That’s still a long ways away, but the resolution will continue to improve of course as New Horizons gets closer and makes its closest approach on July 14, 2015, taking the first-ever closeup images of Pluto and its five known moons. From the update:

“Pluto, the largest known body in the Kuiper Belt, offers a nitrogen atmosphere, complex seasons, distinct surface markings, an ice-rock interior that may harbor an ocean, and at least five moons. Among these moons, the largest – Charon – may itself sport an atmosphere or an interior ocean, and possibly even evidence of recent surface activity.”

Very soon now, we will finally see what this world actually looks like!

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