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If you didn’t know what you were looking at, the image looks rather unremarkable. Two fuzzy blobs in a sea of black, a faint blue glow around their edges. The result of a camera accidentally capturing the inside of one’s pocket, perhaps.

But the image released Wednesday by NASA is far more impressive than appearances suggest. Those blobs are Pluto along with its largest moon, Charon, and it’s the very first colour image taken of the system by an approaching spacecraft.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or These blobs are the first-ever colour image of Pluto and its moon Charon by an approaching spacecraft Back to video

The image was captured on April 9 from a distance of 15 million kilometres by New Horizons, a spacecraft that was sent hurtling out of our atmosphere more than nine years ago on a mission to study Pluto. It’s now just three months away from getting its scheduled flyby date on July 14 when the compact spacecraft will be able to take close-up photos of the dwarf planet and its moons.

Decked out with cameras as well as a suite of scientific instruments, NASA says New Horizons will map Pluto and Charon’s geography, look at atmosphere and surface compositions, and search for other satellites.