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NASA released the first close-up photo of Pluto on Instagram this morning, taken before the spacecraft reached its closest approach.
They wrote; "This stunning image of the dwarf planet was captured from New Horizons at about 4 p.m. EDT on July 13, about 16 hours before the moment of closest approach. The spacecraft was 476,000 miles (766,000 kilometers) from the surface.".
The image took four and a half hours to reach Earth.
Former astronaut John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science missions, said in a press conference: “Pluto has turned out to be an extraordinarily complex and interesting world. For the first time, we know that.”
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