New Horizons spacecraft reaches Pluto

Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft has just made the first visit to Pluto, speeding past at 14km per second. Earlier, the space agency released the most detailed picture yet as it hurtled towards the dwarf planet on Tuesday. The probe was set to grab more images and other data as it passed just 12,500km from the little world at 11:50 Universal time.

At the time of this news, the spacecraft is currently out of contact with Earth as it continues its observations. But scientists already have colour data from the approach and said they might release another new picture of Pluto later on.

For more information visit the New Horizons website: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/