PIA09232: New Horizons Sees Pluto (Sept. 21)
A white arrow marks Pluto in this New Horizons LORRI picture taken Sept. 21, 2006. Seen at a distance of about 4.2 billion kilometers (2.6 billion miles) from the spacecraft, Pluto is little more than a faint point of light among a dense field of stars.
Target Name: Pluto
Is a satellite of: Sol (our sun)
Mission: New Horizons
Spacecraft: New Horizons
Instrument: LORRI
Product Size: 900 samples x 900 lines
Produced By: Johns Hopkins University/APL
Full-Res TIFF: PIA09232.tif (2.433 MB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA09232.jpg (75.49 kB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:

A white arrow marks Pluto in this New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) picture taken Sept. 21, 2006. Seen at a distance of about 4.2 billion kilometers (2.6 billion miles) from the spacecraft, Pluto is little more than a faint point of light among a dense field of stars. Mission scientists knew they had Pluto in their sights when LORRI detected an unresolved "point" in Pluto's predicted position, moving at the planet's expected motion across the constellation of Sagittarius near the plane of the Milky Way galaxy.

Photojournal Note: There is debate within the science community as to whether Pluto should be classified as a Planet or a dwarf planet.

Image Credit:
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Image Addition Date:
2007-04-02