Live: Pluto system close-ups from New Horizons flyby unveiled by NASA

The first close-ups of Pluto's surface and its moons from yesterday's historic flyby are being released at a NASA briefing this afternoon.

The event began streaming live on CBCNews.ca at 3 p.m. ET.

NASA's New Horizons became the first spacecraft to make a close flyby of Pluto and its moons on Tuesday morning. The spacecraft was temporarily silent while it was busy snapping images and collecting data, but sent confirmation of a successful flyby Tuesday evening.

The spacecraft is currently about 4.8 billion kilometres away, and it takes about 4½ hours for the data it sends to arrive on Earth.

It's expected to take the spacecraft 16 months to transmit all the data it collected during the flyby.

New Horizons, which was launched 9½ years ago, is now continuing into the Kuiper Belt, the huge zone of icy bodies and mysterious small objects orbiting beyond Neptune.

Watch NASA briefing live stream

Via