NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has captured its first color images of the dwarf planet Pluto and its moon, Charon. Image Credit: JPL / NASA Using the Ralph color imager, one of its seven sophisticated instruments, New Horizons took its first color images of Pluto and Charon on April 9. The images were released on April 14, exactly three months before the spacecraft’s planned flyby of the Pluto system and its tiny moons. These tantalizing images are just the teaser for what will come this summer when the spacecraft flies past Pluto. Taken from a distance of 71 million miles, approximately the same as the distance from the Sun to Venus, the images, while extremely blurry, do allow for differences between the two worlds can still be seen.