We downgraded its status, but Pluto still showed us its heart.
A spartan but warm-toned orb with a prominent heart-shaped terrain came into clear view Tuesday morning after NASA’s New Horizons snapped a picture some 476,000 miles from its surface after nearly a decade of travel.
Pluto was still considered a planet when New Horizon’s took off in 2006 for the end of our solar system. Since then, astronomers changed its status to a dwarf planet, but that did not diminish the excitement scientists and fans of star-gazing as the probe approached Pluto and its moons.
NASA first shared the news Tuesday with its 3.5 million followers on Instagram by posting the New Horizon image.
While scientists cheered and waved American flags during the first viewing of the photo at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, they are holding their breath until they get a communication call from New Horizon, expected to come sometime after 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
The spacecraft is currently in data-gathering mode and not in contact with flight controllers, NASA said, and the status update scheduled for tonight will give scientists the peace of mind that New Horizon made it through the flyby.
Peace of mind not a piece of cake. According to NASA, New Horizon’s is the fastest spacecraft ever launched and enters the Pluto system traveling at more than 30,000 mph. Even the smallest space particle could knock it out. Pluto is part of the Kuiper Belt, a range of icy bodies in a multitude of sizes that contain evidence of the formation of our solar system.
Once it “phones home” tonight, New Horizons will begin transmitting all of it’s data from the nine-year journey. That will take 16 months to complete, according to NASA.
You can catch updates on New Horizons Facebook page.
