The surface of Pluto is becoming better resolved as NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft speeds closer to its July flight through the Pluto system.A series of new images obtained by the spacecraft’s telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) during May 29-June 2 show Pluto is a complex world with very bright and very dark terrain as well as areas of intermediate brightness in between. These images afford the best views ever obtained of the Pluto system.New Horizons scientists used a technique called deconvolution to sharpen the raw, unprocessed pictures (you can find daily versions of the 100-millisecond exposures in the Approaching Pluto gallery ) that the spacecraft beams back to Earth; the contrast in these latest images also has been stretched to bring out additional details. Deconvolution can occasionally produce artifacts, so the team will be carefully reviewing newer images taken from closer range to determine whether some of the tantalizing details seen in the images released today persist. Pluto’s nonspherical appearance in these images is not real; it results from a combination of the image-processing technique and Pluto’s large variations in surface brightness.Since April, deconvolved images from New Horizons have allowed the science team to identify a wide variety of broad surface markings across Pluto, including the bright area at one pole that scientists believe is a polar cap. 
 
 “Even though the latest images were made from more than 30 million miles [50 million kilometers] away, they show an increasingly complex surface with clear evidence of discrete equatorial bright and dark regions — some that may also have variations in brightness,” says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “We can also see that every face of Pluto is different and that Pluto’s northern hemisphere displays substantial dark terrains, though both Pluto’s darkest and its brightest known terrain units are just south of, or on, its equator. Why this is so is an emerging puzzle.” 
 
 
 
 “We’re squeezing as much information as we can out of these images and seeing details we’ve never seen before,” said New Horizons Project Scientists Hal Weaver from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “We’ve seen evidence of light and dark spots in Hubble Space Telescope images and in previous New Horizons pictures, but these new images indicate an increasingly complex and nuanced surface. Now, we want to start to learn more about what these various surface units might be and what’s causing them. By early July, we will have spectroscopic data to help pinpoint that.” 
 
 
 
 New Horizons is approximately 2.9 billion miles (4.7 billion km) from Earth and just 20.4 million miles (32.9 million km) from Pluto. The spacecraft and payload are in good health and operating normally. ||||| NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is four weeks away from its flyby of Pluto, with just 20 million miles to go. This diagram shows the current position of New Horizons, along with its path so far (in green) and the road ahead (in red). 
 
 NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is less than one month away from its flyby of Pluto and in great shape for what promises to be a truly epic encounter with the dwarf planet. 
 
 New Horizons, the first spacecraft ever sent to investigate Pluto, has been traveling for nine long years and has just 20 million miles (32 million kilometers) to go before it makes a historic flyby of the dwarf planet. During its close encounter with Pluto, New Horizons will fly within 7,750 miles (12,500 km) of the dwarf planet and capture the first-ever close-up views of the icy world. [See the latest photos of Pluto from New Horizons] 
 
 "This is getting really exciting," Cathy Olkin, New Horizons' deputy project scientist, said in a video update today (June 16). 
 
 New Horizons has been tracking Pluto with its instruments and snapping ever-sharper views of the dwarf planet. Last week, NASA unveiled images of the four "faces of Pluto" — views of the different surface features on the dwarf planet as it rotated over the course of four days. 
 
 These images of Pluto from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft show views of the dwarf planet as it rotates, revealing details about the dimensions of its dark surface patches. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute 
 
 "We've always known Pluto had dark areas, but now, we're starting to see how large they are, where they're exactly located, what shape they take — and it's very fascinating to see this level of detail," Olkin said. 
 
 This week, New Horizons will begin taking infrared photographs of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, to help map their surface geology and temperature. The probe will also begin taking daily color images that record Pluto's full rotational phase. It will also continue taking measurements with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, nicknamed LORRI. 
 
 New Horizons' Pluto flyby will also mark the first time a spacecraft has explored the icy Kuiper Belt, where Pluto resides, and the probe's mission won't stop once it zips by Pluto. 
 
 Chris Hersman, a New Horizons mission systems engineer, said that if the probe's power supply remains healthy, its mission could continue through the outer edge of the solar system for quite some time. 
 
 "There are a lot of interesting interactions between the heliosphere and what's beyond that, so we'd like to get there — and it looks like we can make it until the mid-2030s at least," Hersman said. (The heliosphere is the magnetic bubble containing our solar system, solar wind and the entire solar magnetic field.) 
 
 NASA's New Horizons mission update today was the first in a series of weekly updates — held each Tuesday this month — leading up to the Pluto flyby on July 14. Starting July 7, NASA and the New Horizons team will begin providing daily updates on the mission's progress. 
 
 To see NASA's complete schedule of New Horizons updates leading up to the Pluto flyby, visit: 
 
 http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-television-coverage-media-activities-for-pluto-flyby. 
 
 Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. ||||| The New Horizons spacecraft was launched in 2006, and is currently hurtling toward Pluto at more than 35,000mph (nearly 60,000 km/h). It's set to pass the giant ball of rock and ice on July 14th, and when it does it will give us the first real glimpse ever seen of the former planet. 
 
 In anticipation of that historic moment, the National Space Society commissioned this beautiful video teaser (conveniently called New Horizons) by the man behind Wanderers, the space-themed short film that went viral late last year. Where Wanderers was all about the places our species might someday go, New Horizons is all about paying homage to the exploration we've already accomplished at a distance. 
 
 Most of the video is spent showing off the worlds we've already explored with spacecraft programs like Mariner (Mercury, Mars, Venus), Pioneer (Jupiter, Venus, and the Moon), Voyager (Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, and Uranus), and Dawn (Vesta and Ceres). 
 
 We still don't know what Pluto really looks like 
 
 It's all preamble, however, for Wernquist's visual take on Pluto, a world 3 billion miles away. The New Horizons spacecraft will be the first to visit Pluto, so no one is completely sure what Pluto will look like. (There are some fascinating artist's conceptions floating around, but the best real images we have are little more than pixelated blobs.) The two shots we see are colorful and awe-inspiring, and in less than a month we'll see just how right he got it. 
 
 Verge Video archive: Space exploration is back
– NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is all set for what Space.com predicts will be a "truly epic encounter" with Pluto next month. The first spacecraft ever sent to the dwarf planet, New Horizons is now about 20 million miles away—and 2.9 billion miles from Earth, reports Astronomy—but will get within 7,750 miles of the planet on July 14. During the flyby, it is expected to capture the most detailed views of Pluto ever, before exploring the outer edge of our solar system—if its power supply allows. "There are a lot of interesting interactions between the heliosphere"—the magnetic bubble around our solar system—"and what's beyond that, so we'd like to get there, and it looks like we can make it until the mid-2030s at least," an engineer says. Since providing the first color photo of Pluto in April, the spacecraft has also captured images of all four of the planet's "faces" from 30 million miles away, using its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager. Already, researchers say they're able to make out a "complex and nuanced surface." "We've always known Pluto had dark areas, but now, we're starting to see how large they are, where they're exactly located, what shape they take—and it's very fascinating to see this level of detail," a scientist says. "This is getting really exciting." In the coming days, the spacecraft will snap infrared photographs of both Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, to map surface geology and temperature. Can't wait for the flyby? Appease yourself with this trailer, per the Verge.