NASA releases record-breaking photos from beyond Pluto

New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) imaged the “Wishing Well” open star cluster (NGC 3532) December 5. The image was taken from a distance of 3.79 billion miles (6.12 billion km, or 40.9 astronomical units — 1 astronomical unit (AU) is the average Earth-Sun distance, and Pluto ranges between about 30 and 50 AU). In comparison, Voyager 1’s iconic “Pale Blue Dot” image, taken February 14, 1990, was snapped from a distance of 3.75 billion miles (6.06 billion km, 40.5 AU) from Earth. Soon after, Voyager’s camera was turned off, eliminating the possibility of additional record-breaking images. Until now.

But breaking Voyager’s record once just wasn’t good enough. Two hours later, New Horizons turned its imager toward 2012 HZ84 and 2012 HE85, two objects in the Kuiper Belt, and taking what are — for now — considered the farthest images from Earth ever captured.

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