NASA just released the first ever color image of Pluto captured by the New Horizons spacecraft along with the planet's reddish moon, Charon. New Horizons is set to fly by Pluto on July 14.

During its mission, the probe will obtain and consolidate data that will be transmitted back to Earth over the next 16 months.

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The unmanned probe is nearly five billion kilometers away from our planet and it will take 4.6 hours for a single radio signal to come back, which is terribly slow.

This encounter is slated to become the next major space event this year and will complete the voyage of all the nine planets in the solar system. New Horizon's flyby will finally complete the exploration of each planet at least once by a spacecraft.

The last satellite or probe that revealed a new world in the solar system was the Voyager 2 satellite that passed Neptune during the late 1980s. New Horizons hopes to open up Pluto with never before seen images of the mysterious dwarf planet.

To date, the best images of the 2,300 kilometer wide planet was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. In these photos, Pluto looks like a blob that makes it difficult to discern anything scientific.

Next month, New Horizons will begin transmitting images in higher and better resolution than the Hubble was ever able to capture. 

This image released Tuesday was taken by the probe's Ralph color imager last April 9 from a distance of about 115 million kilometers, comparable to the distance of the Sun from Venus.

As New Horizons flies over to Pluto on July 14, Ralph will send color images that will reveal its surface for the first time ever.

According to New Horizons principal investigator, Alan Stern, the spacecraft is in perfect condition and it's full of fuel. It's carrying a suite of several scientific instruments that are the most powerful ones ever to be delivered during a reconnaissance of a new planet.

Stern adds this milestone has not been done in over a quarter of a century and this could also be the last mission of its kind NASA has planned.

TagsCharon, NASA, New Horizons, color photo image pluto, first photo of pluto, pluto charon moon, NASA new horizons pluto color image, [PHOTO] First Ever Color Image of Pluto and its Moon Charon Courtesy of NASA's New Horizons