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