From Pluto With Love: July 8 Image Reveals A 'Heart' Shaped Feature

This mage of Pluto from the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) was received on July 8, and has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument.

Pluto is showing us its 'heart' as NASA's New Horizons close encounter observations officially begin. In the most detailed image of Pluto released so far, you can clearly see the dark whale-shaped feature on the left and a large heart-shaped bright area measuring about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) across on the right.

"The next time we see this part of Pluto at closest approach, a portion of this region will be imaged at about 500 times better resolution than we see today," said Jeff Moore, Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team Leader of NASA’s Ames Research Center. "It will be incredible!"

For the original press release, click here.