By Desiree Salas (media@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Jun 23, 2015 08:36 AM EDT

Even though Pluto's classification as a planet was changed in 2006, the general public's consciousness may still find it tricky shaking off the notion that Pluto is not a planet and that we only have 8 planets in the solar system instead of the 9 that has been drilled into our heads by science teachers.

As such, news of the release of the best view of Pluto got a welcome reception from observers. Finally, we're getting a closer look at the little-known former planet.

"As the New Horizons spacecraft speeds toward Pluto, it's sending back increasingly cool images of the mysterious former planet," Popular Science said. "In the latest batch, we can see Pluto and its moon, Charon, dancing around each other in the mission's first near-true color movies."

The said animation was cobbled together from images taken by the hurtling spacecraft around the last week of May or first week of June. Although Pluto looks quite pixellated, the animation gave us our best and closest view of Pluto, making it good enough material for researchers. For now, at least.

"New Horizons' July 14 flyby will give us our first good look at the planet's surface, atmosphere, and moons," the news source said. "It might also help to reinstate Pluto as a real planet."

"Even at this low resolution, we can see that Pluto and Charon have different colors," affirmed Alan Stern, New Horizons Principal Investigator. "Pluto is beige-orange, while Charon is grey. Exactly why they are so different is the subject of debate."

"The picture's orientation makes Pluto look as if it's a big-headed alien skull from a 'Star Trek' episode, with two cratered eyes looking out toward the camera," NBC News described. "It's a subtle effect, reminiscent of the Viking 1 orbiter's eerie 'Face on Mars' image from 1976."

Looking at the animation, it appears Charon and Pluto are spinning round each other rather than the former going around the latter, as what our own moon is doing.

A study using Hubble images as reference discovered that many of Pluto's smaller satellites appear to display a similar reflectivity to Charon. This "suggests they might have been formed from the same material, or even by the same event," The Washington Post noted.

Considering that Pluto is pretty much near the edge of our solar system, it would be interesting to learn more about Pluto and what its moons are made of as this will give scientists more clues about the solar system and beyond.

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