[meteorite-list] NASA's Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic Encounter

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-three-billion-mile-journey-to-pluto-reaches-historic-encounter

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NASA's Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic Encounter
July 14, 2015

[Image]
Pluto nearly fills the frame in this image from the Long Range Reconnaissance 
Imager (LORRI) aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, taken on July 13, 
2015 when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the 
surface. This is the last and most detailed image sent to Earth before 
the spacecraft's closest approach to Pluto on July 14. The color image 
has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph 
instrument that was acquired earlier on July 13. This view is dominated 
by the large, bright feature informally named the "heart," which measures 
approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across. The heart borders 
darker equatorial terrains, and the mottled terrain to its east (right) 
are complex. However, even at this resolution, much of the heart's interior 
appears remarkably featureless - possibly a sign of ongoing geologic processes.
Credits: NASA/APL/SwRI


NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto.

After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made 
its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface 
- roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India - making it 
the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.

"I'm delighted at this latest accomplishment by NASA, another first that 
demonstrates once again how the United States leads the world in space," 
said John Holdren, assistant to the President for Science and Technology 
and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. 
"New Horizons is the latest in a long line of scientific accomplishments 
at NASA, including multiple missions orbiting and exploring the surface 
of Mars in advance of human visits still to come; the remarkable Kepler 
mission to identify Earth-like planets around stars other than our own; 
and the DSCOVR satellite that soon will be beaming back images of the 
whole Earth in near real-time from a vantage point a million miles away. 
As New Horizons completes its flyby of Pluto and continues deeper into 
the Kuiper Belt, NASA's multifaceted journey of discovery continues."

[Image]
Members of the New Horizons science team react to seeing the spacecraft's 
last and sharpest image of Pluto before closest approach later in the 
day, Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics 
Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls

"The exploration of Pluto and its moons by New Horizons represents the 
capstone event to 50 years of planetary exploration by NASA and the United 
States," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "Once again we have achieved 
a historic first. The United States is the first nation to reach Pluto, 
and with this mission has completed the initial survey of our solar system, 
a remarkable accomplishment that no other nation can match."

Per the plan, the spacecraft currently is in data-gathering mode and not 
in contact with flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied 
Physical Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Scientists are waiting 
to find out whether New Horizons "phones home,' transmitting to Earth 
a series of status updates that indicate the spacecraft survived the flyby 
and is in good health. The "call" is expected shortly after 9 p.m. tonight.

The Pluto story began only a generation ago when young Clyde Tombaugh 
was tasked to look for Planet X, theorized to exist beyond the orbit of 
Neptune. He discovered a faint point of light that we now see as a complex 
and fascinating world.

"Pluto was discovered just 85 years ago by a farmer's son from Kansas, 
inspired by a visionary from Boston, using a telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona,"
said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate in Washington. "Today, science takes a great leap observing 
the Pluto system up close and flying into a new frontier that will help 
us better understand the origins of the solar system."

New Horizons' flyby of the dwarf planet and its five known moons is providing 
an up-close introduction to the solar system's Kuiper Belt, an outer region 
populated by icy objects ranging in size from boulders to dwarf planets. 
Kuiper Belt objects, such as Pluto, preserve evidence about the early 
formation of the solar system.

New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research 
Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, says the mission now is writing 
the textbook on Pluto.

"The New Horizons team is proud to have accomplished the first exploration 
of the Pluto system," Stern said. "This mission has inspired people across 
the world with the excitement of exploration and what humankind can achieve."

New Horizons' almost 10-year, three-billion-mile journey to closest approach 
at Pluto took about one minute less than predicted when the craft was 
launched in January 2006. The spacecraft threaded the needle through a 
36-by-57 mile (60 by 90 kilometers) window in space -- the equivalent 
of a commercial airliner arriving no more off target than the width of 
a tennis ball.

Because New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched - hurtling 
through the Pluto system at more than 30,000 mph, a collision with a particle 
as small as a grain of rice could incapacitate the spacecraft. Once it 
reestablishes contact Tuesday night, it will take 16 months for New Horizons 
to send its cache of data - 10 years' worth -- back to Earth.

New Horizons is the latest in a long line of scientific accomplishments 
at NASA, including multiple rovers exploring the surface of Mars, the 
Cassini spacecraft that has revolutionized our understanding of Saturn 
and the Hubble Space Telescope, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. 
All of this scientific research and discovery is helping to inform the 
agency's plan to send American astronauts to Mars in the 2030's.

'After nearly 15 years of planning, building, and flying the New Horizons 
spacecraft across the solar system, we've reached our goal," said project 
manager Glen Fountain at APL 'The bounty of what we've collected is about 
to unfold."

APL designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages 
the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the mission, 
science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons 
is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency's Marshall 
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtag #PlutoFlyby 
to join the conversation. Live updates also will be available on the mission 
Facebook page.

For more information on the New Horizons mission, including fact sheets, 
schedules, video and images, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

and

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/plutotoolkit.cfm

-end-

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo at nasa.gov

Mike Buckley
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
240-228-7536
michael.buckley at jhuapl.edu

Maria Stothoff
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
210-522-3305
maria.stothoff at swri.org