New Horizons spacecraft approaches dwarf planet Pluto and its moon Charon. - Illustrations

NASAs New Horizons unmanned spacecraft flies into the shadow of dwarf planet Pluto and its moon Charon. New Horizons has been en route to Pluto since its launch from Earth in 2006 and is scheduled to make its closest approach on July 14, 2015. New Horizons will be traveling at a velocity relative to Pluto of 30,800 mph, far too fast for it to enter orbit around and become a satellite of Pluto. Instead after passing Pluto, New Horizons will continue farther into the Kuiper belt searching for other objects with diameters of 30 to 60 miles. New Horizons is about the size and shape of a grand piano and weighed 1,054 pounds at launch. The high-gain dish antenna is about 7 feet in diameter and is employed for communication with the Earth. In this image the New Horizons spacecraft is about 6,000 miles from Pluto (left), 17,000 miles from its largest moon Charon (far left) and 2.97 billion miles from the Earth While little is known about Plutos appearance, here this Kuiper belt dwarf planet is realized as a frozen world covered with various ices, hosting a thin atmosphere of nitrogen, methane and other hydrocarbons too possibly, with a significantly weathered surface as Plutos 248-year orbit alternately brings it closer then further from the warmth of the sun.