Poor Pluto. Once considered the solar system’s ninth planet, it recently got demoted to “large object” status.
Luckily, even though isn’t technically a planet anymore, Pluto still gets plenty of love from astronomers. Case in point: NASA’s New Horizons probe, which is administered by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, is currently nearing the end of its 10-year, 3 billion mile journey to take the closest-ever look at Pluto.
This week, in honor of the birth of Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh, NASA released the New Horizons’ newest images of Pluto, which are from a mere 126 million miles away.
Okay, sure, it doesn’t look like much. But consider this: 3 BILLION MILES. That’s crazy.
Stay tuned for even more exciting pictures of a vague, fuzzy blob this summer, when the New Horizons gets even closer to Pluto.
