NASA's New Horizons probe has sent back a photo on earth that NASA has claimed to be the most detailed photo ever of Pluto. The image shows a heart-shaped feature on the Pluto's surface. New Horizons spacecraft is travelling closer to Pluto's surface and is all set for its historic flyby of the planet.

The clearest image of the reddish-brownish dwarf planet was received by mission scientists in the early morning hours on Wednesday. The image was captured by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard the New Horizons.

The distance of New Horizons from Pluto when the picture was taken was less than 5 million miles from Pluto. New Horizons' closet flyby of the planet is scheduled for next Tuesday. During the closest approach to the dwarf planet, New Horizons will pass within 6,200 miles of the planet's surface. And the travelling speed would be 27,000 miles per hour.

New Horizons has been travelling for nine years to reach Pluto; the spacecraft is nearly 3 billion miles away from earth. The distance is so big that it would take 4.5 hours for radio signals to reach earth, even if travel at the speed of light.

Parts of the region observed in Tuesday's image would be seen by the spacecraft when it flies the closest to Pluto on July 14. "The next time we see this part of Pluto at closest approach, a portion of this region will be imaged at about 500 times better resolution than we see today", said Jeff Moore, New Horizons' geology, geophysics and imaging team leader from NASA's Ames Research Center.