Pluto and Charon as never seen before

NASA managers formally approved the New Horizons mission another speedy encounter with an object at the frontier of the solar system, but denied a request from scientists to redirect the Dawn spacecraft to visit a third destination in the asteroid belt, opting to keep it in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, officials said Friday.

The New Horizons spacecraft speeding toward Pluto has returned a new image of the icy world lurking at the solar system’s outer frontier — the first photo beamed back to Earth since the probe suspended science operations Saturday.

Images taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft when it flew by an object the size of a large metropolitan area at the frontier of the solar system Jan. 1 have revealed the miniature world has a more flattened shape than the flyby’s initial pictures suggested.