NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft returned images of Pluto from over three billion miles away. After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto, about 7,750 miles above the surface.
“My dad would be thrilled with New Horizons,” said Clyde Tombaugh’s daughter Annette Tombaugh, of Las Cruces, New Mexico. “To actually see the planet that he had discovered, and find out more about it — to get to see the moons of Pluto– he would have been astounded. I’m sure it would have meant so much to him if he were still alive today.”