Pluto: Icy, weird, far away -- and finally gets a nail-biting closeup

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[h=4]Pluto: Icy, weird, far away -- and finally gets a nail-biting closeup[/h]It's almost time for the Pluto flyby. Are you ready?

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NASA's New Horizon spacecraft delivered the best view yet of Pluto, and the images are expected to only get better.


View of Pluto as seen from NASA New Horizons spacecraft, which has traveled more than 9 years and 3+ billion miles. This is the last and most detailed image of Pluto sent to Earth before the moment of closest approach.(Photo: NASA via Instagram)


LAUREL, Md. – For the first time in its 4-billion-year life, Pluto got a visitor from Earth today, or so anxious engineers hope.
At 7:49 a.m. ET, NASA's New Horizon's spacecraft was scheduled to flash by Pluto's piebald face at a distance of less than 8,000 miles before leaving the planet in its cosmic dust. Never before has a spacecraft from any nation ventured remotely close to Pluto.
There's a hitch in this triumphant scenario: the spacecraft is so busy collecting data that engineers haven't heard from it since 11:17 p.m. ET Monday, and it will maintain its teasing silence until close to 9 p.m. ET tonight. The blackout is by design, but it has the New Horizons team on edge.
Team members can only "hope that we had prepared it well," mission operations manager Alice Bowman told reporters Tuesday, adding that she feels "just as you do when you send your child off … It's a mix of feeling nervous and proud at the same time."
Ahead of the flyby, hundreds of scientists and other guests in a room near Mission Control here counted down in unison to the exact moment. At "zero," a roar rose from the crowd, which broke out in a sea of small American flags distributed for the occasion.
Just after the flyby time, the mission's principal investigator, Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., noted that New Horizons carries a 1991 postage stamp proclaiming "Pluto: Not Yet Explored."
USA TODAY
Pluto flyby could unmask strangest solar-system citizen




"We just made it obsolete," Stern said, to cheers and laughter. "We're asking the post office to get a new stamp, because this one doesn't quite fill the bill."
A new picture taken by the spacecraft Monday and released Tuesday shows that Pluto may have a living, dynamic surface rather than an inert and unchanging terrain. The image offers 1,000 times better resolution than even the Hubble Space Telescope could take, and better still is to come.
When he saw the image, "I said, 'Oh my goodness, there are craters everywhere,' " recalled Matthew Hill of The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which managers the $720 million mission for NASA. The imagery got "much richer just (from) yesterday to today."
The flyby offers symbolic significance, but it's also the key moment of the mission for many scientists hanging on every byte of data from the spacecraft.
The flyby "is when you the highest resolution pictures," says New Horizon investigator Fran Bagenal, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "We're only going to be close to Pluto for a few hours, and that's the time when we'll be gathering all the valuable data."
That data will include some very basic but still unknown facts about Pluto. Even now, Pluto's puniness and remoteness make it impossible to observe with high fidelity from Earth, so scientists hope to learn fundamentals such as how many moons it has – five have been discovered to date – and what the terrain is like.
USA TODAY
Pluto flyby: Here's what you need to know




New Horizons set off to fill in the blanks about Pluto in early 2006, catapulting off the launch pad faster than any other spacecraft in history to help it cover the vast distance to its target. The ship bristles with seven scientific instruments and a more unusual payload: some of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930. For decades Pluto was considered the 9th planet in the solar system, but just after New Horizons blasted off, astronomers voted to downgrade it to a dwarf planet instead.
USA TODAY
5 cool NASA projects worth talking about amid the excitement about Pluto




After surviving more than 9 years in space and a 3 billion-mile voyager, there is a remote but real chance that New Horizons could blink out just before its hour of glory. A tiny piece of space dust from one of Pluto's moons could destroy the spacecraft – a highly unlikely scenario that will nonethelss have scientists in suspense until they hear from their ship late Tuesday.
"We just have to sit and wait for it to call home (with) all fingers and toes crossed," Bagenal says. "We're definitely going to be cheering when we hear the phone-home message that New Horizons is safe."
USA TODAY
New Pluto images may reignite debate over dwarf planet status

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKNever-before-seen image of Pluto revealed | 01:43NASA's New Horizon spacecraft delivered the best view yet of Pluto, and the images are expected to only get better.

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKA timeline of New Horizons' journey to Pluto | 02:15The New Horizons' spacecraft has successfully completed the flyby of Pluto early Tuesday morning on July 14, 2015. This motion graphic piece shows New Horizons' journey from Earth to Pluto. Ramon Padilla, Jerry Mosemak, George Petras, Bethany Fewell, Zackary Walker

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKPluto flyby elicits huge cheers, 'USA' chants at NASA | 00:43NASA staff and fans of the space program celebrate the flyby of Pluto from the New Horizon spacecraft. VPC

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKNASA | Four Questions About New Horizons | 01:48NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is speeding towards Pluto for the first-ever flyby on July 14, 2015. Scientists are eager to collect data on the dwarf planet’s chemical and atmospheric makeup, and the Ralph spectrometer will do just that. NASA USA TODAY

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKMankind about to see Pluto for first time | 03:35NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is closing in on Pluto, now a dwarf planet, and sending back images of its surface for the first time. USA TODAY

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOK3 billion miles later, spacecraft closes in on Pluto | 01:51Almost 10 years after it launched, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is closing in on Pluto. The flyby will offer the first detailed look at the dwarf planet. VPC

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKNew horizons flyby will shed light on Pluto's mysteries | 01:22NASA's New Horizons probe will make its closest approach to Pluto this week, giving us a wealth of new information about the distant dwarf planet. Newslook

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKPluto flyby begins: NASA probe enters encounter phase | 00:43NASA's New Horizons probe has officially begun to execute its sequence of Pluto flyby observations as it zooms toward its closest approach to the dwarf planet on July 14. USA TODAY

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKNASA probe captures first color images of Pluto | 01:26NASA’s New Horizons probe has sent back its most detailed images of Pluto yet, but it’s got a way to go before we see high-resolution images.
Video provided by Newsy Newsy

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKNew horizons spacecraft takes first images of Pluto's moons | 01:33NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has sent back the clearest images yet of two of Pluto's moons as it approaches the dwarf planet to collect more data.
Video provided by Newsy Newslook

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKNASA spacecraft soon arrives at Pluto | 02:29USA TODAY's Rick Hampson discusses the dwarf planet Pluto, and NASA's deep space mission dubbed "New Horizons," which aims to explore, photograph and analyze it. Image courtesy NASA. Jason Allen

PLUTO THE PLANET OR DWARF PLANET? WE FINALLY GET A CLOSE LOOKWait, is Pluto a planet, again? | USA NOW | 02:09There’s been a lot of talk about Pluto’s planet status, eight years since the celestial body was officially labeled a “dwarf planet.” Carly Mallenbaum talks about what all of the fuss is about and why some people are really excited for Pluto. (USA TODAY, USA NOW)





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The New Horizons' spacecraft has successfully completed the flyby of Pluto early Tuesday morning on July 14, 2015. This motion graphic piece shows New Horizons' journey from Earth to Pluto. Ramon Padilla, Jerry Mosemak, George Petras, Bethany Fewell, Zackary Walker

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