NASA’s Evolving Views of Pluto

Released Wednesday, July 15, 2015

ID: 11954

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew within 8,000 miles of dwarf planet Pluto on July 14, 2015. Our view of this cold, previously unexplored world, 4.67 billion miles from Earth, has evolved since its discovery by Clyde W. Tombaugh in 1930. These short clips and images are from Tombaugh, Hubble and New Horizons over the years, arranged to illustrate improvements in resolution.

A new close-up image of a region near Pluto’s equator reveals a giant surprise - a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.

Credits: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI

The close-up image at the end of this video clip was taken about 1.5 hours before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 47,800 miles (77,000 kilometers) from the surface of the planet. The image resolves structures smaller than a mile across.

The close-up image at the end of this GIF was taken about 1.5 hours before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 47,800 miles (77,000 kilometers) from the surface of the planet. The image resolves structures smaller than a mile across.

These are the GIF image references:

Clyde Tombaugh 1930

Hubble Space Telescope 1996

Hubble Space Telescope 1994

Hubble Space Telescope 2011

Hubble Space Telescope 2002-2003