Video: New Horizons animation

Less than six months from a historic close-up of Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft has glimpsed its distant target at a range of 126 million miles, and better pictures are coming.

Images from NASA’s New Horizons probe show Pluto is a surprisingly active world in the deep freeze of the outer solar system, with jagged 11,000-foot-high mountains of frozen water dusted with a veneer of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide ice amid smooth plains and jumbled terrain.

In a triumph of deep space navigation and with Pluto shrinking in its wake, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has steered on a course to reach a tiny object named 2014 MU69 for a whirlwind visit on New Year’s Day 2019.