The Voyager Mission Experience

July is a month of rich rewards for Alan Stern, the scientist who shepherded the New Horizons spacecraft from the drawing board to Pluto, and the payoff will be sweet.

Take a look at a sneak peak of Pluto taken Monday at a range of 766,000 kilometre (476,000 miles), about 16 hours before New Horizons’ closest approach.

Four images from the New Horizon’s probe’s LORRI camera have been combined with colour from the Ralph instrument to create this spectacular false colour image of Pluto.