14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this year, on July 14, NASA's New Horizons probe, launched in January of 2006, made space exploration history when it flew by the Pluto system at the edge of the Solar System.
The historic flyby is recreated in an animated video put together by mission scientists and released by the US space agency this Friday.
The video, which you can find below, shows us exactly what the New Horizons spacecraft saw while approaching Pluto, when buzzing by the dwarf planet and then while leaving the system.
“This animation, made with real images taken by New Horizons, begins with Pluto flying in for its close-up on July 14,” NASA scientists write in the video's description.
“We then pass behind Pluto and see the atmosphere glow in sunlight before the sun passes behind Charon. The movie ends with New Horizons’ departure, looking back on each body as thin crescents.”
Dwarf planet Pluto is located at a distance of about 4.67 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) from Earth when at its farthest and 2.66 billion miles (4.28 billion kilometers) when at its closest.
During its flyby on July 14, New Horizons got as close as 7,750 miles (12,470 kilometers) to Pluto's surface and so managed to image landscapes on the dwarf planet in unprecedented detail.
Having successfully completed this mission, the NASA probe will now move on to study other objects in the Kuiper Belt. Then, some years from now, it will leave our cosmic neighborhood and enter interstellar space.
