1.11 Pluto and friends

Imaged by New Horizons on 1 July 2013 – still two years away from reaching Pluto – this was the first view on the approach to Pluto and Charon.

Figure 6 Charon (left) and Pluto ( right) imaged by New Horizons

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An image of Charon (left) and Pluto ( right) imaged by New Horizons.

Figure 6 Charon (left) and Pluto ( right) imaged by New Horizons

New Horizons flew past Pluto and Charon in July 2015. Visit this NASA link [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] to see where New Horizons is now. You can search images there to see marvellous close-ups of Pluto, Charon and the smaller moons from the 2015 flyby, of the smaller and more distant Kuiper Belt object 2014MU₆₉ in the 31 Dec 2018 flyby, and videos of exciting press conferences when the new data were discussed.

See also:

• Charon seen close up. David Rothery’s October 2015 article about Charon as revealed by New Horizons
• Rapid rotation of Pluto’s small moons. Rapid and inclined rotation of Pluto’s small moons discovered by New Horizons.
• Collisions in the Kuiper Belt. Ideas about how collisional mergers occurred to grow Kuiper Belt objects, including a nice image of the contact binary 2014MU₆₉.