Live coverage: New Horizons returns first close-up image

Beginning a 4.4-billion-mile trek to retrieve a sample from Asteroid Bennu for return to Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft blasted off atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 12:05 a.m. BST (2305 GMT).

A speedy space probe barreled past Pluto for a one-shot flyby Tuesday, becoming the first spacecraft to ever visit the frozen, reddish world at the solar system’s distant frontier.

Data from the New Horizons flyby of the Kuiper Belt body Ultima Thule on New Year’s Day sheds new light on processes at work during the solar system’s birth.