We're About To Learn What Pluto Really Looks Like

Earth’s relationship with Pluto is complicated, to say the least.

We classified it as a planet in 1930, and nearly a century later, flaunted the galaxy’s ‘no takesy backsies’ rule by downgrading it to a dwarf planet. It’s not even the biggest dwarf planet around; that honour belongs to relative new kid on the block Eris, discovered in 2005. The final insult? It was used in the title for Eddie Murphy's arguably worst film: The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Hadn't it suffered enough?

We’ve never even really had a good look at Pluto, and have only gotten to know it from pictures only a few pixels in size. (All other images you may be familiar with are simply artists' interpretations.)

That’s all set to change on July 14, when the spacecraft New Horizons is scheduled to fly past Pluto and provide us with pictures of such clarity, ABC News says we could theoretically see objects on the surface “the size of a 50-metre swimming pool.” This is basically the interplanetary equivalent of Laney taking off her glasses in She’s All That so that Earth’s Freddie Prinze Jr. can truly appreciate her.

Fun fact: New Horizons, about the size of a piano, was launched by NASA nine years ago and passed the moon within nine hours of take-off. You would barely be able to finish reading a book in that time, and not just because you would be travelling at 50,000km an hour and having a lot of trouble moving your arms to turn the pages.

Head to ABC News for more info on Pluto and New Horizons’ mission. Check back next week, when we'll hopefully have some hot new snaps of this icy dwarf planet to enjoy.