For just about a decade and three billion miles away from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft phoned home with one of the most historic photos of all time. A sharp image of Pluto - the first kind of its image in history. Over the course of the next 16 months, New Horizons will continue to send amazing information about the dwarf planet back to Earth, including details on its five moons; Charon, Nix, Kerberos, Hydra and Styx. New Horizons snapped the picture of the demoted planet approximately 476,000 miles away from its surface.
The team behind New Horizons cheered this historic milestone and look forward to the next chapter. The spacecraft alerted NASA its systems were working as necessary, the instruments were in good condition and its fuel is adequate to continue its mission, potentially well beyond Pluto.
During the spacecraft’s flyby, the New Horizons team held their breath plenty of times assuring no space debris or collisions would occur, destroying years of work and patience. The spacecraft was released in January 2006 to start its years-long mission. As Pluto came into sharper focus and the very first image was sent, researchers discovered a new fact. Pluto is not as small as once considered. Rather, the planet’s diameter makes it the largest “dwarf” planet in the known solar system.
For those who are curious to see more photos, NASA assured New Horizons will be sending more images on Wednesday afternoon.
What is next for New Horizons? The spacecraft will now pass through the Pluto system and slowly into the Kuiper Belt. This area of space, reportedly, holds frozen remains from the infancy of the solar system. It can provide clues to the development of the solar system, and how exactly it was formed. New Horizons will explore this area for approximately the next four years before heading into its Interstellar mission in 2020, if everything goes according to plan.
As far as that planet demotion of Pluto? The not-so-little mission of Pluto has fans at NASA, including its chief administrator, Charles Bolden, who said he calls it a planet, but he’s “not the rule maker.” Perhaps with the latest discovery, and images received, it will push the science community to once again honor Pluto as a planet.
Check out this exciting, history-making event in the science community by following updates on the New Horizons website.