Pluto and Charon to scale during the approach of "New Horizons." Original caption: New Horizons was about 3.7 million miles (6 million kilometers) from Pluto and Charon when it snapped this portrait late on July 8, 2015. Most of the bright features around Pluto's edge are a result of image processing, but the bright sliver below the dark "whale," which is also visible in unprocessed images, is real. Color information obtained earlier in the mission from the Ralph instrument has been added.