NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Makes Historic Pluto Flyby, Sends Back Incredible Imagery

Dan Van Winkle

Published: Jul 14, 2015 12:09 pm

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Our 3-billion-mile journey to Pluto reaches historic #PlutoFly! Details & the high-res image: http://t.co/qX7KpXIUUQ pic.twitter.com/LDjXLtPdly

— NASA (@NASA) July 14, 2015

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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is currently whizzing past Pluto at over 30,000 mph after navigating the solar system for a decade, and the imagery it’s sending back definitely proves it’s taken the scenic route.

Oh, and let’s not ignore this:

The best thing about the Pluto image from NASA today is the silhouette of Pluto the dog right on it. pic.twitter.com/hVqD5QTwGz

— Scott Johnson (@scottjohnson) July 14, 2015

After sending back the high res version of the above image—the clearest image of Pluto ever recorded—the spacecraft has gone dark to focus on capturing even more impressive imagery and data from the dwarf planet. Just look at how far we’ve come!

We’ve come a long way with @NASANewHorizons to this #PlutoFlyby. pic.twitter.com/KlGr0vFuB6

— NASA Goddard (@NASAGoddard) July 14, 2015

When it reestablishes contact, we’ll complete the last set of first images of a planet for a very long time:

Everyone’s celebrating right now on Twitter with #PlutoFlyby,

An emotional day, for sure! AND, it’s not over! Here’s a great photo of the #PlutoFlyby team reacting to new images. https://t.co/GK6MfBoPzi

— NASA New Horizons (@NASANewHorizons) July 14, 2015

and Stephen Hawking has even boarded the Pluto hype train with his own message of congratulations:

Stephen Hawking NASA StatementI would like to congratulate the New Horizons team and NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration for their historic flyby of Pluto. The culmination of a decade long mission, I can’t wait to see what new information the New Horizons spacecraft will reveal about our distant relative. – SH

Posted by Stephen Hawking on Tuesday, July 14, 2015

The next 24 hours are going to be very exciting for space! Stay tuned!

Tweets by @NASANewHorizons

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Author

Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.