NASA’s Pluto mission in pictures

Artist impression of the New Horizons spacecraft, which made a historic flyby of dwarf planet Pluto on July 14, 2015. (Credits: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft launches aboard an Atlas V rocket from Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Jan.19 2006. (Image Credit: NASA/Ken Thornsley)

A portrait from the New Horizons spacecraft’s final approach. Pluto and its moon Charon are seen in this composite image from July 11, 2015. (Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

Pluto’s bright, mysterious “heart” rotates into view in this image taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 12, 2015, from a distance of 1.6 million miles. (Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

Members of the New Horizons science team react to seeing the spacecraft's last and sharpest image of Pluto before closest approach, July 14, 2015 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. (Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls) ((NASA/Bill Ingalls))

One of the final images taken before New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto on July 14 2015. (Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)