The Voyager Mission Experience

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.

Living up to promises that the view from New Horizons will only get better, the Pluto-bound spacecraft has again bested itself with a dazzling colour view of Pluto and Charon released Thursday.

Now more than two years outbound from its historic encounter with Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is on target for a fleeting flyby less than 2,200 miles from 2014 MU69, an icy, city-sized world set to become the most distant object ever visited, just after midnight Jan. 1, 2019. Scientists now say the probe may be able to pursue another destination some time in the 2020s.