(WGNO) – After 3.2 billion miles and 9 and a half years, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday morning at 6:50 a.m. CDT.
Before the New Horizons mission, this was the clearest view of Pluto we had:
While powerful, the Hubble Telescope saw Pluto as a fuzzy circle, billions of miles away. Now, we have a view that is much clearer with a resolution 1000 times more powerful than Hubble can provide.
New Horizons isn’t missing this opportunity and will continue snapping away. Traveling at speeds of almost 31,000 mph, it will continue to snap pictures and measurements of not only Pluto, but its five moons as well with seven different instruments on board. Even though the data will be transmitted back to earth as radio waves traveling at the speed of light, it will still take about 4 and a half hours for it to return once transmission begins.
The data from today’s close approach actually won’t reach Earth until tomorrow. The antenna can only take measurements or send them back to Earth and can’t do both at once. NASA would rather get as much data as it can now, and send it back at a later time. Pluto isn’t the final destination for New Horizons. It will continue speeding into the Kuiper Belt, an area of the solar system home to asteroids, dwarf planets, and comets.