Countdown to historic flypast of dwarf planet Pluto

Tuesday 14 July 2015 at 9:35am

This was the closest image Nasa had ever captured of Pluto - until today Credit: Nasa

The clearest pictures ever captured of Pluto will be beamed back to Earth today - as US spacecraft New Horizons get closer than ever before to the dwarf planet.

After a nine-year journey, the probe will pass closer to the surface than any other has ever before, passing within 7,767 miles (12,500km) of Pluto at 12.49pm UK time.

A space tracking station in an Australian valley will today become the first place to receive the images as they are relayed back to Earth.

Canberra's Deep Space Communication Complex is braced to receive the images, before beaming them around the world.

ITV News' science correspondent Alok Jha explains what will happen:

Brendan Owens, an astronomer at the Greenwich Royal Observatory in London, said the images and other data collected by New Horizons would give scientists a better idea of how the wider solar system was formed.

When the mission was launched in January 2006, the aim was to reach the outermost of the sun's family of what was then considered to be nine planets.

But just seven months into the probe's epic journey, international astronomers down-graded Pluto's status to "dwarf planet".