Washington, Jul 7 (EFE).– The U.S. New Horizons space probe has provided the clearest and closest images to date of Pluto a week before it arrives at its historic rendezvous with the distant and largely unknown dwarf planet.

The photographs, taken on July 1 and 3, are a foretaste of what scientists hope to see when the probe makes history on the 14th, passing just 12,500 km (7,750 mi.) from Pluto, the closest any man-made object has ever come to the tiny frozen world.

Upon its launch in January 2006, NASA emphasized that Pluto was the only one of the then-nine planets in the Solar System that had never been visited by a space probe.

Just a few months later, however, in August, Pluto was relegated to the status of “dwarf planet” by the International Astronomical Union.

By that time, the space probe weighing 480 kg (about 1,056 pounds) was already en route toward Pluto with the task of unveiling its mysteries.

Thanks to this mission, today Pluto is known better than ever and the scientific community has high hopes for what it will learn from the photos to be beamed back to Earth in the coming days.

On July 4, the probe gave mission scientists a scare when its signal died for more than an hour and experts at the mission control center at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland worked frantically – and ultimately successfully – to reestablish the connection.

The probe is scheduled to make its closest approach to Pluto at 7:50 a.m. next Tuesday, nine-and-a-half years after leaving Earth.

New Horizons began its fabulous journey on board an Atlas V rocket, lifting off from Cape Canaveral. On board the probe are some of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the astrophysicist who in 1930 discovered the faint point of light we now know as Pluto. EFE