Pluto’s pics through the years

On July 14, the New Horizons spacecraft whizzed by the dwarf planet Pluto—the culmination of a journey that covered more than 4 billion km and took 9 years to finish.

 

To celebrate, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center tweeted a GIF showcasing the different pictures of Pluto taken over the years, progressing from a pixelated blob to the image New Horizons took last night.

 

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, and the first picture we have of it is little more than a blurry gray dot.

 

This is in stark contrast to New Horizon's high-resolution photograph taken in 2015, almost a century later, which shows features on Pluto's surface that Tombaugh could only have dreamed of.

 

We've come a long way with @NASANewHorizons to this #PlutoFlyby. pic.twitter.com/KlGr0vFuB6

— NASA Goddard (@NASAGoddard) July 14, 2015

 

— TJD, GMA News