New Horizons to Pluto. On this day in 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto, nearly a decade after it launched on a mission to explore the dwarf planet. Th flyby gave us our first up-close views of the dwarf planet and its moons. 1️⃣ This full-scale model of New Horizons was donated to the Museum by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in 2008 and is in our collection. 2️⃣ After New Horizon's flyby we discovered that Pluto has a heart! This false-color image highlights the differences in the composition and texture of Pluto's surface. 3️⃣ This is the highest-resolution color departure shot of Pluto's receding crescent from New Horizons. It was taken when the spacecraft was 120,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) away from Pluto. #AirSpacePhoto