New Horizons is in the home stretch. With fewer than 500,000 miles and less than a day to go until the NASA spacecraft whizzes by Pluto, the images it’s lobbing back across the roughly 3-billion-mile distance between Earth and Pluto are continuing to turn up fresh surprises.
Pluto was once little more than a blurry dot in the sky; now, the NASA spacecraft’s images reveal a complex surface with signs of ridges and cratering. Geologically speaking, there’s a lot going on on this little world.
After a 9 1/2-year journey through space, New Horizons will fly by Pluto on July 14 at 30,800 miles per hour, coming within roughly 7,750 miles of the dwarf planet.