The view improves in a few years

This is what Pluto and Charon look like from 3,600,000,000 kilometers. The picture was snapped by NASA’s New Horizons probe which expects to flyby the planet in 2015. Expected future highpoints for the mission are:

• June 9, 2008 -- Pass Saturn’s orbit.
• March 5, 2011 -- Pass Uranus’ orbit.
• August 1, 2014 -- Pass Neptune’s orbit.
• July 14, 2015 -- Flyby of Pluto around 11:59 UTC at 11096 km, 13.780 km/s
• July 14, 2015 -- Flyby of Charon around 12:13 UTC at 26927 km, 13.875 km/s
• 2016-2020 -- possible flyby of one or more Kuiper Belt objects.

Set your alarms accordingly.