NASA New Horizons Races Toward Pluto and its Heart-Shaped Features

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has now managed to capture its best view yet of Pluto. After more than nine years and three billion miles, the spacecraft has officially begun its flyby sequence of science observations.

In the early morning hours of July 8, mission scientists received a new view of the planet Pluto-the most detailed yet to return from New Horizons. The picture itself was snapped on July 7 when the spacecraft was just under 5 million miles from Pluto.

"The next time we see this part of Pluto at closest approach, a portion of this region will be imaged at about 500 times better resolution than we see today," said Jeff Moore, Leader of NASA's Ames Research Center, in a news release. "It will be incredible!"

The view in the new picture is currently centered on the region that will be seen close-up during New Horizons' closest approach, which will occur on July 14. This side of Pluto is dominated by three broad regions of varying brightness. Most prominent are an elongated dark feature at the equator, informally known as "the whale," and a large, heart-shaped bright area that measures about 1,200 miles across the right. Above these features is a polar region that's intermediate in brightness.

The new image shows a bit more of Pluto's surface features. That said, this is just a taste of what is to come. As New Horizons makes its closest approach, researchers on Earth will receive data about the tiny planet that will tell them a bit more about it and give them the clearest picture yet of Pluto.

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