By 
April 14th, 2015
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
The first color image ever made of the Pluto system by a spacecraft on approach has been released.
The image of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was taken by the Ralph color imager aboard NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on April 9, 2015, from a distance of about 71 million miles (115 million kilometers).
New Horizons spacecraft is three months from returning to humanity the first-ever close up images and scientific observations of distant Pluto and its system of large and small moons.
The spacecraft will deliver color images that eventually show surface features as small as a few miles across.
Credit: NASA/APL
Its flyby of Pluto and its system of at least five moons on July 14 will complete the initial reconnaissance of the classical solar system.
The fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons has traveled a longer time and farther away – more than nine years and three billion miles – than any space mission in history to reach its primary target.
Posted in Space News
