Horizons was approved as a mission, Charon was the only known moon
When New Horizons has gone through the system on 14 July, it will fly on, into the domain of the Solar System referred to as the Kuiper Belt.
It's a region of space that should contain many thousands of icy bodies, and Hubble has found a couple of candidates that the spacecraft can quite easily reach for another flyby event in 2019. In some senses, you should think of New Horizons as a sentinel, because over the course of the next 10-15 years we're going to get some colossal telescopes that will be able to probe the Kuiper Belt properly for the first time. New Horizons is the scout.
And, finally, no discussion of Pluto can omit a reference to that controversial day in 2006 when the International Astronomical Union, the keeper of space nomenclature, "demoted" the world from full planet status to mere dwarf planet.
Alan Stern is still riled by that decision - "You wouldn't go to a podiatrist if you needed brain surgery, and I don't recommend you ask astronomers to do the job of planetary scientists and planet classification" - but he is actually now more interested in talking about the burgeoning science of dwarf planets.
"I think historically Pluto will always be considered the ninth planet, but from a technical standpoint it's obviously one of a very large class of planets - the best known in that class, because it was the first to be discovered, and so far it's the largest and apparently the most complex in the class, with the richest satellite system, the most interesting atmosphere, etc.
"But people need to understand that this is a time of change in the field as we get used to a new paradigm with large numbers of small planets."
Closest approach (13,000km) to Pluto is set for about 11:50 GMT on 14 July. With pictures that have a best resolution of 70m per pixel, Pluto will be a blob no more.