Description
This beautiful image obtained with the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft shows the night side of Pluto's large, Texas-sized moon Charon, against a star field, lit by faint, reflected light from Pluto itself. The bright crescent on Charon's right side is a sliver of sunlit terrain; it is overexposed. New Horizons was already about 100,000 miles (150,000 kilometers) beyond Pluto when the image was taken on July 15, 2015.
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio, leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
