The Voyager Mission Experience

Exactly 85 years after Clyde Tombaugh’s historic discovery of Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft set to encounter the icy dwarf planet this summer is providing its first views of the small moons orbiting Pluto.

The first hints of dramatic cliffs, chasms and craters are showing up in new imagery of Pluto and its Texas-sized moon Charon as NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft prepares to bolt by the icy worlds Tuesday.

The frozen faraway miniature world targeted for a high-speed flyby by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on 1 January 2019, now has a nickname: Ultima Thule.