The Huge Heart of Pluto 
 
 Pluto’s “Heart” is seen in this new image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) received on July 8, 2015 after normal science operations resumed following the scary July 4 safe mode anomaly that briefing shut down all science operations. It shows ‘the heart and the whale’ along Pluto’s equator. The LORRI image has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument. Credits: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI 
 
 Story updated[/caption] 
 
 Emotions are rising exponentially with the rousing revelation that Pluto has a huge ‘Heart’ as revealed in stunning new imagery received just today (July 8) from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft – which has also officially started its intensive flyby campaign merely 5 days out from humanity’s history making first encounter with the last unexplored planet in our Solar System on Tuesday, July 14. 
 
 Notably, today’s image showing Pluto’s ‘heart-shaped’ surface feature proves that New Horizons is now fully back in business following the nail-biting July 4 weekend anomaly that unexpectedly sent the probe into a protective status known as ‘safe mode’ and simultaneously sent mission engineers and scientists scurrying to their computer screens to resolve the scary issues and recover the probe back to full operation – just in the nick of time. 
 
 The intriguing ‘heart’ is the brightest area on Pluto and “may be a region where relatively fresh deposits of frost—perhaps including frozen methane, nitrogen and/or carbon monoxide—form a bright coating,” say mission scientists. 
 
 While in ‘safe mode’ all science operations were temporarily halted for nearly three days as the spacecraft inexorably zooms towards mysterious Pluto and its quintet of moons for our first up close reconnaissance of the frigid world and the Kuiper Belt. 
 
 Read my earlier story from July 6 here detailing how the science team and NASA resolved the July 4 anomaly and restored New Horizons to normal operations with little time to spare for its one time only flyby of the other ‘Red Planet’. 
 
 The close encounter sequence last for 9 days and it will take 16 months to relay back the vast quantity of data to be collected. 
 
 The view of Pluto’s ‘Heart’ was taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) when the spacecraft was just under 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) from Pluto, and is the first to be received back on Earth since the anxiety rush caused by the July 4 anomaly. 
 
 The heart covers nearly half of Pluto’s now well resolved disk. 
 
 Right beside the large heart-shaped bright area, which measures some 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) across, is another enigmatic and elongated equatorial surface on the left side informally dubbed ‘the whale.’ 
 
 Mission scientists say ‘the whale’ is one of the darkest regions visible to New Horizons and it measures some 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers) in diameter, making it about 50% wider that the ‘heart.’ 
 
 Above ‘the whale and the heart’ lies Pluto’s polar region that images show is intermediate in brightness. 
 
 NASA also released another perspective view of ‘the whale and the heart’ as seen below. 
 
 Be sure to keep this entire area in mind – as if your appetites haven’t been whetted enough already – because “this view is centered roughly on the area that will be seen close-up during New Horizons’ July 14 closest approach,” says NASA. 
 
 “The next time we see this part of Pluto at closest approach, a portion of this region will be imaged at about 500 times better resolution than we see today,” said Jeff Moore, Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team Leader of NASA’s Ames Research Center, in a statement. “It will be incredible!” 
 
 With barely 5 days to go until the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a fast flyby encounter of the ever intriguing binary planet traveling at the far flung reaches of the solar system, last minute glitches are the last thing anyone needs. 
 
 Why? Because there are no second chances as New Horizons barrels towards the Pluto system at approximately 30,000 miles per hour (over 48,000 kilometers per hour), which forms a binary planet with its largest known moon – Charon. 
 
 “The New Horizons spacecraft and science payload are now operating flawlessly,” Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, announced at the July 6 post anomaly media briefing. 
 
 The nature of Pluto’s features that may appear to resemble craters or volcanoes is not yet known. 
 
 “We should be very cautious in interpreting these features,” Stern told Universe Today. 
 
 New Horizons will swoop to within about 12,500 kilometers (nearly 7,750 miles) of Pluto’s surface and about 17,900 miles (28,800 kilometers) from Charon during closest approach at approximately 7:49 a.m. EDT (11:49 UTC) on July 14. 
 
 TThe probe was launched back on Jan. 19, 2006 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on a 9 year voyage of over 3.6 billion miles (5.7 billion km). 
 
 “We are on our way to Pluto!” exclaimed Jim Green, director of Planetary Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, at the July 6 news media briefing. “It’s really a historic time, fraught with many decisions and challenges on the way to the July 14 Pluto system encounter.” 
 
 “With Pluto in our sights, we’re going for the gold.” 
 
 The New Frontiers spacecraft was built by a team led by Stern and included researchers from SwRI and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. APL also operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission. 
 
 Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news. 
 
 Ken Kremer ||||| Image copyright NASA/JHU-APL/SWRI Image caption Pluto (R) and Charon (L) are the key targets for observation during the flyby 
 
 Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft has begun the most intense period of its encounter with Pluto. 
 
 The probe is set to hurtle past the dwarf world on Tuesday, grabbing a mass of pictures and other science data. 
 
 Controllers got a last health status report, before the robotic craft turned its antenna away from the Earth to concentrate on its target. 
 
 Only when New Horizons has its trove of images safely in its onboard memory will it call home again. 
 
 This is not expected to happen until just after midnight (GMT) into Wednesday. 
 
 It means there will be a long, anxious wait for everyone connected with the mission, as they hold out for a signal that will be coming from almost five billion km away. 
 
 New Horizons' flyby of 2,370km-wide Pluto is a key moment in the history of space exploration. 
 
 Its successful execution will complete the initial reconnaissance of the "classical" nine planets in our Solar System. 
 
 It will mark the fact that every body in that system - from Mercury through to Pluto - will have been visited at least once by a space probe. 
 
 Image copyright NASA Image caption The robotic probe turns its antenna away from Earth during the flyby 
 
 New Horizons has been returning a steady stream of information on approach to the dwarf world in recent days, but this will be as nothing compared to the huge number of observations it plans to acquire when passing just 12,500km from the surface. 
 
 This is timed to occur at 11:50 GMT (12:50 BST). 
 
 The probe will investigate not only Pluto but also its five moons: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. 
 
 To achieve that, it must perform a furious set of manoeuvres as it points every which way in the sky to get the images and other types of data it needs. 
 
 "I can't wait to get into the data and really start making sense of it. Right now, we're just standing under the waterfall and enjoying it," New Horizons' principal investigator, Alan Stern, told BBC News. 
 
 Just getting the probe in position to make the flyby has been a monumental feat. 
 
 Because the observations are all run on an automated command sequence, New Horizons must fly a perfect path past Pluto, and with perfect timing - otherwise its cameras will shoot empty sky where the dwarf or its moons are expected to be. 
 
 This has necessitated aiming New Horizons at a "keyhole" in space just 100km by 150km (60miles by 90 miles), and arriving at that location within a set margin of 100 seconds. 
 
 All this has been achieved after a multi-billion-km flight across the Solar System lasting nine and a half years. 
 
 The mission team will not celebrate until New Horizons contacts Earth again, which should happen at 00:53 GMT Wednesday (01:53 BST). 
 
 This communication will contain only engineering information on the status of the probe, but controllers should be able to tell very quickly whether the flyby sequence worked properly or not. 
 
 The first high-resolution pictures from the pass should be downlinked later on Wednesday. 
 
 There is a very small possibility that New Horizons could be lost as it flies through the Pluto system. 
 
 Any stray icy debris would be lethal if it collides with the spacecraft at its 14km/s velocity (31,000mph). 
 
 As an insurance policy, the mission team therefore downlinked one last set of data from all seven of the probe's instruments on Monday. 
 
 This included a final full-frame picture of Pluto before the approaching dwarf filled the entire field of view. This image is expected to be released by Nasa on its website at the moment of closest approach on Tuesday. 
 
 Media caption Prof Alan Stern says Pluto is "a little larger than anticipated" 
 
 On Monday, the New Horizons team announced a new, more precise measurement of Pluto's diameter at 2,370km. The probe sees the girth of Charon to be very similar to earlier estimates, at 1,208km. 
 
 Nix is estimated to be about 35km across, and Hydra about 45km in diameter. Kerberos and Hydra are a lot smaller, but New Horizons has not yet been able to make a good determination of their size. This will come from the flyby data. 
 
 Image copyright NASA Image caption How Pluto and its biggest moon, Charon, compare in size to the Earth 
 
 The BBC will be screening a special Sky At Night programme called Pluto Revealed on Monday 20 July, which will recap all the big moments from the New Horizons flyby. 
 
 Follow Jonathan on Twitter. ||||| Ahead of Tuesday's historic flyby, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has already delivered data that 'is a gift for the ages.' Among the discoveries: Pluto is bigger than previously thought. 
 
 Will Macy's become the next store to drop the Ivanka Trump brand? 
 
 On the eve of NASA's historic flyby of Pluto, scientists and tourists at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona are excited about the images and discoveries the New Horizons' spacecraft will beam back to Earth. 
 
 NASA's New Horizons mission to the Pluto-Charon system has yet to mark its finest hours – a historic flyby that makes its closest approach to the binary planet and its moons Tuesday morning. 
 
 But even as the spacecraft puts the wraps on its final approach, data New Horizons has delivered within the past 48 hours "is a gift for the ages," says Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and the mission's principal investigator. 
 
 The craft's approach is revealing "tremendous diversity between the two planets in the system and their moons," he said. "We're already seeing complex and nuanced surfaces that tell us of history for these two bodies that is probably beyond our wildest dreams." 
 
 In short, "the Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and alien beauty," Dr. Stern said during a briefing Monday. 
 
 How alien? 
 
 It's as though "we're on the bridge of the Enterprise approaching some alien planet around Alpha Centauri 3 or whatever it is," said Paul Schenk, a planetary geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston and a member of the New Horizons science team. "It's like someone painted it for a 'Star Trek' episode." 
 
 Even seemingly mundane measurements, such as a new, more-accurate determination of Pluto's size – now pegged at 1,473 miles across, at the high end of estimates that have ranged from 1,429 miles to around 1,491 miles – carry import. 
 
 The new size, combined with long-established, precise measurements of Pluto's mass, yields a dwarf planet a bit less dense than previously estimated. That means its interior contains more ice, versus rock, than previously estimated. This change has implications – yet to be worked out – for the process that formed the binary-planet system as well as for the chemistry of the disk of dust, gas, and ice that encircled the sun and provided the building blocks for the planets ad their moons, Stern explained. 
 
 Bragging rights also come into play. 
 
 "The new measurement unambiguously settles the debate about the largest object in the Kuiper Belt," Stern said, referring to a region of the solar system extending more than 2 billion miles beyond Neptune. By some estimates, the region hosts trillions of comets as well as several hundred thousand objects larger than 60 miles across. It's also the region that gave birth to Pluto and the object that would collide with it to form Charon. Another Kuiper Belt inhabitant, Eris, had previously laid claim to the "largest" label at 1,445 miles across. 
 
 A larger Pluto also means that the lower layer of the atmosphere is shallower than previously thought, which will affect models that try to shed light on the atmosphere's structure and behavior. 
 
 Another early result involves nitrogen escaping from Pluto's tenuous atmosphere. New Horizons' instruments began to pick up the great escape five days ago, when the craft supposedly was too far away to see it, Stern said. It could mean that the nitrogen is fleeing the planet at a higher rate than models have suggested or that the mechanism responsible for triggering the loss is different than researchers have anticipated. 
 
 In addition, incoming data show that a hypothesized polar cap on Pluto is in fact an ice cap consisting of nitrogen and methane ices. 
 
 New Horizons also is revealing features on Pluto that are generating speculation, pending more detail from measurements taken at the closest approach. 
 
 For instance, images of Pluto released over the weekend show a surface that in many places hosted vast expanses of small, tightly packed dimple-like formations. 
 
 The features appear to be similar to those on Neptune's moon Triton, Dr. Schenk said. Triton – itself thought to be a Kuiper Belt object that Neptune captured – hosts a surface "that looks like a boiling pot of porridge, with cells of material popping up. They create a cellular pattern that looks like the skin of a cantaloupe." 
 
 There, researchers suspect that relatively buoyant rock or ice has risen from deeper in the crust to build the array of hills and depressions – similar in principle to salt domes that rise through surrounding rock to form low hills in southern Louisiana or southeastern Texas. 
 
 The science team hopes to get a closer look at some of these dimpled regions in images New Horizons takes during its closest approach Tuesday morning. 
 
 In addition, images so far show a relatively smooth surface over much of Pluto, suggesting that the surface could be relatively young, Schenk said. 
 
 Again, he cites Triton as a possible analog. The relative smoothness of much of Triton's surface suggests that it's less than 100 million years old. "On Triton, everything is very young," Schenk said. 
 
 It speaks to Triton as a captured Kuiper Belt object whose orbit around Neptune initially would have been elliptical, but over time became circular. The change in orbit would have heated Triton significantly, allowing fresh material to well up from depth and repave the surface, erasing any evidence of impact craters that would have accumulated over time. 
 
 On Pluto, "we're not seeing any large craters that would pop out and say: There's a big basin here," he says. "So we're beginning to think that maybe that it's a very young surface." 
 
 The source of internal heating required to provide material for repaving Pluto is unclear, Schenk acknowledges. Perhaps heat left over from the impact that formed Charon remained intense enough long enough to provide sources of fresh material for resurfacing Pluto. 
 
 "We still don't know," he says. "But we'll find that out." 
 
 [Correction: This article has been updated to correct the new measurements of Pluto's diameter.] ||||| NASA/JPL-Caltech If all went according to plan, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made history Tuesday morning after snagging the world's first close-up look at Pluto. 
 
 But completing the Solar System's planetary family portrait is just a small part of the spacecraft's journey — it's already explored Jupiter and is now destined to probe a mysterious zone of icy objects called the Kuiper Belt. 
 
 In fact, mission leader and planetary scientist Alan Stern says New Horizons may have decades' worth of exploration left in it, thanks to its long-lived nuclear power source. 
 
 Pre-Pluto homework 
 
 Before its personal rendezvous with Pluto, New Horizons swung by Jupiter for a gravitational speed boost. This shaved almost 4 years off its travel time, to a total of 9 1/2 years. 
 
 New Horizons did a little science while it was in the Jovian neighborhood, too. For example, its cameras caught the Tvashtar volcano exploding on Jupiter's third-largest moon, Io. It also made about 700 other observations, giving New Horizons the opportunity to test its suite of seven scientific instruments. 
 
 Now, about 8 years later, New Horizons is completing what's arguably the most popular leg of its trip — zooming past Pluto and its moons, of which there are at least five. 
 
 A first look at the icy dwarf planet 
 
 The busiest part of New Horizon's flyby past Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, began about 12 hours before its closest approach, and is slated to last about 12 hours afterward. 
 
 New Horizons passed within 7,600 miles of Pluto's surface for about 30 minutes. During that time it took what will be the best-ever pictures of Pluto, which should resolve surface features as small as 80 feet across. 
 
 But the flyby wasn't just about taking breathtaking close-ups. Scientific instruments also recorded ultraviolet emissions emanating from Pluto's atmosphere — measurements that will help assemble the best maps of Pluto and Charon we may see in our lifetimes. Other devices on New Horizons studied the composition of the dwarf planet's crust, measured variations in its surface temperatures, sifted for space dust, and snapped images of Pluto's moons. 
 
 New Horizons photo of Pluto. Monica Manalo 
 
 After the spacecraft passed by, it turned around to examine Pluto and Charon's dark sides. That's the best way to detect atmospheric haze, search for rings of debris, and identify whether their surfaces are smooth or rough. 
 
 New Horizons also got a good look at Earth and the Sun as they set and rose through Pluto's atmosphere. While this happened, the spacecraft scanned for radio waves from Earth-based transmitters to profile the composition, structure, and temperature profile of Pluto's atmosphere in incredible detail. 
 
 Next stop, the Kuiper Belt... 
 
 An artist's concept of a Kuiper Belt Object. NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI) If all went well with the planned flyby, New Horizons will soon begin the next major leg of its journey: chasing down a Kuiper Belt object (KBO) that measures at least 30 miles in diameter. 
 
 New Horizons has at least three KBOs it can reach, given it's current path through space and limited on-board fuel supply. Their names aren't very exciting: PT1, PT2, and PT3 (where PT means "potential target"). 
 
 Sometime this August, according to SpaceflightNow.com, NASA will pick the KBO it likes the most, then fire New Horizons's thrusters to steer it in that direction. The trip will take at least 2 years. 
 
 New Horizons might be able to study more than one KBO. And each time it does, the spacecraft will scrutinize the icy object in the same way it did Pluto and Charon: map the surface, measure temperatures, scout for moons, and search for traces of atmosphere. 
 
 ...And beyond 
 
 After scrutinizing a KBO or two, New Horizons will escape the sun's influence and never again return to our Solar System. 
 
 "It could go for another 20 years," Stern said during a NASA press conference on Tuesday. Around that time, the nuclear power source on board New Horizons will become too weak to supply energy for taking measurements and communicating with Earth. 
 
 This all assumes, of course, that we don't lose the spacecraft anywhere along the way. 
 
 The flyby was the riskiest part of the mission, and its success is still uncertain; right now, there's still a 1-in-10,000 chance debris around Pluto thwarted the mission. We'll have to wait until Tuesday night before NASA can say whether or not the maneuver went off without a hitch. 
 
 Yet during Tuesday morning's press briefing, Stern seemed upbeat. He noted that you could fly hundreds of New Horizons and they'd likely all survive. 
 
 One way or another, the mission has already made history. Whether in one piece or a shower of spacecraft parts, we've reached the last unexplored world in our Solar System. And that's something not even the International Astronomical Union can take away. ||||| Countdown to discovery! Not since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune in 1989 have we flung a probe into the frozen outskirts of the Solar System. Speeding along at 30,800 miles per hour New Horizons will pierce the Pluto system like a smartly aimed arrow. 
 
 Edging within 7,800 miles of its surface at 7:49 a.m. EDT, the spacecraft’s long-range telescopic camera will resolve features as small as 230 feet (70 meters). Fourteen minutes later, it will zip within 17,930 miles of Charon as well as image Pluto’s four smaller satellites — Hydra, Styx, Nix and Kerberos. 
 
 After zooming past, the craft will turn to photograph Pluto eclipsing the Sun as it looks for the faint glow of rings or dust sheets illuminated by backlight. At the same time, sunlight reflecting off Charon will faintly illuminate Pluto’s backside. What could be more romantic than Charonshine? 
 
 Six other science instruments will build thermal maps of the Pluto-Charon pair, measure the composition of the surface and atmosphere and observe Pluto’s interaction with the solar wind. All of this will happen autopilot. It has to. There’s just no time to send a change instructions because of the nearly 9-hour lag in round-trip communications between Earth and probe. 
 
 Want to go along for the ride? Download and install NASA’s interactive app Eyes on Pluto and then click the launch button on the website. You’ll be shown several options including a live view and preview. Click preview and sit back to watch the next few days of the mission unfold before your eyes. 
 
 Like me, you’ve probably wondered how daylight on Pluto compares to that on Earth. From 3 billion miles away, the Sun’s too small to see as a disk with the naked eye but still wildly bright. With NASA’s Pluto Time, select your city on an interactive map and get the time of day when the two are equal. For my city, daylight on Pluto equals the gentle light of early evening twilight six minutes after sunset. An ideal time for walking, but step lightly. In Pluto’s gentle gravity, you only weigh 1/15 as much as on Earth. 
 
 New Horizons is the first mission to the Kuiper Belt, a gigantic zone of icy bodies and mysterious small objects orbiting beyond Neptune. This region also is known as the “third” zone of our solar system, beyond the inner rocky planets and outer gas giants. Pluto is its most famous member, though not necessarily the largest. Eris, first observed in 2003, is nearly identical in size. It’s estimated there are hundreds of thousands of icy asteroids larger than 61 miles (100 km) across along with a trillion comets in the Belt, which begins at 30 a.u. (30 times Earth’s distance from the Sun) and reaches to 55 a.u. 
 
 Below you’ll find a schedule of events in Eastern Time. (Subtract one hour for Central, 2 hours for Mountain and 3 hours for Pacific). Keep in mind the probe will be busy shooting photos and gathering data during the flyby, so we’ll have to wait until Wednesday July 15 to see the the detailed close ups of Pluto and its moons. Even then, New Horizons’ recorders will be so jammed with data and images, it’ll take months to beam it all back to Earth. 
 
 Fasten your seat belts — we’re in for an exciting ride. 
 
 We’ll be reporting on results and sharing photos from the flyby here at Universe Today, but you’ll also want to check out NASA’s live coverage on NASA TV, its website and social media. 
 
 Monday, July 13 
 
 10:30 a.m. to noon – Media briefing on mission status and what to expect broadcast live on NASA TV 
 
 Tuesday, July 14 
 
 7:30 to 8 a.m. – Arrival at Pluto! Countdown program on NASA TV 
 
 At approximately 7:49 a.m., New Horizons is scheduled to be as close as the spacecraft will get to Pluto, approximately 7,800 miles (12,500 km) above the surface, after a journey of more than 9 years and 3 billion miles. For much of the day, New Horizons will be out of communication with mission control as it gathers data about Pluto and its moons. 
 
 The moment of closest approach will be marked during a live NASA TV broadcast that includes a countdown and discussion of what’s expected next as New Horizons makes its way past Pluto and potentially dangerous debris. 
 
 8 to 9 a.m. – Media briefing, image release on NASA TV 
 
 Wednesday, July 15 
 
 3 to 4 p.m. – Media Briefing: Seeing Pluto in a New Light; live on NASA TV and release of close-up images of Pluto’s surface and moons, along with initial science team reactions. 
 
 We’ll have the latest Pluto photos for you, but you can also check these excellent sites: 
 
 * Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) archive 
 
 * Pluto Photojournal 
 
 * New Horizons science photo gallery 
 
 Need more Pluto? Spend a few minutes watching this excellent New York Times mission documentary. 
 
 Related 
 
 By Bob King - 
 
 I'm a long-time amateur astronomer and member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). My observing passions include everything from auroras to Z Cam stars. I also write a daily astronomy blog called Astro Bob. Check out my forthcoming book "Night Sky with the Naked Eye", a guide to the wonders of the night using only your eyes. Available on Amazon and BN. 
 
 Charon, Clyde Tombaugh, flyby, kuiper belt, NASA, New Horizons, Pluto ||||| A Nasa spacecraft that will hurtle past Pluto on Tuesday at more than 45,000 kilometres per hour has revealed the dwarf planet to be larger than scientists thought. 
 
 Fresh measurements from New Horizons, the first spacecraft to reach Pluto on the outer edge of the solar system, show that it is 2,370 kilometres across, roughly two-thirds the size of Earth’s moon. 
 
 
 
 Alan Stern, the lead scientist on the $700m (£450m) mission, said the increased dimensions meant Pluto must hold more ice and less rock beneath its surface than researchers had expected. Pluto has been hard to measure with any accuracy from Earth because it is so far away, and its atmosphere creates mirages that can fool ground-based telescopes. 
 
 Other instruments onboard New Horizons confirmed that Pluto’s north pole bears an icy cap. The latest measurements beamed to Earth from the probe picked up chemical signatures of methane and nitrogen ice in the polar cap. 
 
 
 
 One early image received from New Horizons last week showed Pluto as an orangey globe bearing a large bright spot shaped like a heart. More recent images have revealed cliffs, craters and chasms larger than the Grand Canyon. 
 
 “The science we’ve already made is mouth-watering,” said Stern. “The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and its alien beauty.” 
 
 
 
 New Horizons will perform its historic flyby at 12.49pm BST on Tuesday. But scientists must wait until 2am BST on Wednesday for the probe to make contact with Earth and confirm it has survived the encounter. 
 
 The most dangerous hazards for New Horizons are dust particles trapped in orbit around Pluto after being dislodged from its moons by meteorite impacts. A strike from a dust particle the size of a grain of rice could destroy the spacecraft, but the risk of such a disaster is low, at around one in 10,000. 
 
 
 
 The New Horizons spacecraft has spent more than nine years on its 4.8bn kilometre journey to Pluto, the last world in the solar system to be visited by a spacecraft. On board are seven sophisticated instruments and the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930. 
 
 
 
 Sorry, your browser is unable to play this video. Facebook Twitter Pinterest 
 
 When the probe blasted off in January 2006, Pluto was the ninth planet in the solar system. Seven months later, astronomers at the International Astronomical Union voted to downgrade the icy body to a dwarf planet, because it does not dominate its region of space in the way the other major planets do. 
 
 
 
 The spacecraft will take scores of photographs as it speeds past Pluto and its five known moons, Charon, Hydra, Nix, STyx and Kerberos. The images will give the first close-up view of the mountains and valleys of the unknown world, and its tenuous atmosphere seen as the sun rises and sets behind it. Instruments on New Horizons might even find evidence that it snows on the tiny world. 
 
 
 
 Nasa officials expect the first images from the flyby to be released on Wednesday night. The snapshots from onboard cameras will capture details up to 100 metres across, a vast improvement on those taken on approach, which pick out features about 15 kilometres across. 
 
 But scientists are in for a long wait to learn everything New Horizons sees. The probe will collect so much information as it passes Pluto that it will take 16 months to send it all back to Earth. 
 
 
 
 The mission marks the end of the US space agency’s bid to explore every planet in the solar system, starting with Venus in 1962. Tuesday’s flyby coincides with the 50th anniversary of the first ever fly-by of Mars by the Mariner 4 probe. ||||| NASA scientists are now getting even more dramatic images of Pluto and its moons Charon and Hydra from their New Horizons spacecraft. USA TODAY 
 
 Artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft during its planned encounter with Pluto and its moon, Charon. (Photo: None, Johns Hopkins University Applied) 
 
 Flying by Pluto was the goal, but the New Horizons spacecraft isn't stopping anytime soon — or at least that's what the team of scientists and engineers hopes. 
 
 After a nearly 10 year journey, the New Horizons spacecraft snapped unprecedented photos of the dwarf planet and collected data to send back to Earth. For the next few weeks, the spacecraft will continue to take photos of Pluto to capture different angles. 
 
 The majority of the time, however, the spacecraft will be sending back data and images to Earth, a process that will take about 16 months to complete. 
 
 With scientists saying all signs point to the spacecraft being in full health, the team has its sights set on further discoveries. 
 
 Alan Stern, the principal investigator of New Horizons, said the spacecraft has enough power to keep going until the mid-2030s. By that point, it will be roughly 9.3 billion miles from the sun, he said. 
 
 "We have a chance to go further and explore the deep reaches of the heliosphere, like Voyager did, and to do that with much more modern instruments," Stern said, "and hopefully return data that will really add to the storehouse of what we know about our environment in the solar system. 
 
 Around the end of October, the spacecraft will change its course toward one of two targets. The unnamed targets, which scientists have spent a lot of time searching for, are located in the Kuiper Belt - a region of the solar system beyond the known planets. 
 
 "It was much harder than they expected because the direction we're going just happens to be cluttered with all the stars of the Milky Way, which makes it harder to find these Kuiper Belt objects," said Chris Hersman, New Horizons' mission systems engineer 
 
 He said the objects could give scientists a better idea of how planets form. 
 
 "As the planets get formed and they're closer to the sun, the sun alters their makeup," Hersman said. 
 
 The spacecraft will not reach the objects until after 2017. 
 
 The future of the New Horizons mission, though, heavily depends on NASA funding. John Grunsfeld, NASA's science mission chief, dodged the question about funding for the spacecraft at a Tuesday news conference. Grunsfeld will have a big say in whether to fund the mission moving forward. 
 
 Hersman, however, is confident once the data from the Pluto Flyby arrives, the funding will be more likely. For now, though, the team is still enjoying the spotlight. 
 
 "For nine and a half years, we're in hibernation, we kind of fly under the radar and suddenly, all eyes are on us and it's a little overwhelming, but I really appreciate the support," Hersman said. 
 
 Traci Watson contributed to this report 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1J1iDez ||||| Pluto is pictured from a million miles away in this July 11, 2015 handout image from New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI). 
 
 SYDNEY A space tracking station surrounded by cows in an Australian valley will on Tuesday become the first place in the world to get close-up images of Pluto, the most distant planetary body ever explored. 
 
 After nine-and-half years of traveling 5.3 billion km (3.3 billion miles), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s spacecraft New Horizons will get within 12,500 km (7,800 miles) of Pluto on Tuesday evening. 
 
 The spacecraft has been sent specifically to take pictures of Pluto, a part of the solar system that has been in deep freeze for billions of years. The data will be relayed back to the tracking station at Canberra's Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC). 
 
 "It's very exciting because we have never ever visited Pluto, either by robots or man missions because it is so far away," CDSCC Director Ed Kruzins told Reuters. 
 
 Up to now, little has been known about Pluto, the most distant planetary body in the solar system and the last to be explored by NASA. 
 
 It was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006 and is thought to contain important clues about the origins of the solar system. 
 
 "There's a feeling among scientists that Pluto probably will tell us what the early solar system looked like and it's now locked in deep freeze and maybe it will tell us what we once were, a long time ago," Kruzins said. 
 
 New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft ever launched, is due to send a message that will be received by the Australian tracking station on Wednesday - a key message that will determine if the mission has been a success. 
 
 Each piece of data will then take about four-and-half hours to transmit, with the full dataset taking about 15 months to complete. 
 
 New Horizons will travel at 58,000 km (36,039 miles) per hour past Pluto, Kruzins said, which could pose a problem if there is any space debris. 
 
 "Even a grain of sand would cause significant damage to the vehicle, it would be like being hit by a brick at 70 kilometers per hour," Kruzins said. 
 
 The tracking station, 35 km (20 miles) from the capital of Canberra, is part of NASA's Deep Space network and is one of only three tracking stations in the world. 
 
 New Horizons will be at its closest to Pluto for about 24 hours before continuing on its journey to the outer solar system. 
 
 (Editing by Robert Birsel)
– This is one of the biggest days in the exploration of our solar system since Voyager 2 approached Neptune in 1989—and there may not be a day like it again. According to NASA's calculations, its New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto at 31,000mph at 7:49am EDT today; confirmation of that will come tonight, some 13 hours later, reports the AP. The confirmation will mark the completion of NASA's tour of the "classical nine" planets, reports the AP, which notes that Pluto was considered a full-fledged planet instead of a dwarf one when the probe began its journey in 2006. Some things to know about the historic flyby, which comes 50 years to the day after the first successful flyby of Mars: New Horizons will have to capture a vast amount of data in a short time. The probe will be pushed to its limits as it pivots to capture photos and information on Pluto and its moons Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra during the flyby. "I can't wait to get into the data and really start making sense of it. Right now, we're just standing under the waterfall and enjoying it," principal New Horizons scientist Alan Stern tells the BBC. We don't know whether it was a success. The probe is far too busy to "phone home," the AP notes, but it's expected to send a confirmation signal at around 9pm tonight. The eagerly awaited first photos from the flyby should be released tomorrow night, the Guardian reports, though it will take 16 months to send all the data from the flyby back to Earth. We've already learned a lot of new things about Pluto. "The science we've already made is mouth-watering," says Stern. "The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and its alien beauty." Among NASA's findings in recent days: Pluto's North Pole has an icy cap and the planet's diameter is 1,597 miles across, not 1,471 miles as previously thought. The finding suggests the planet contains a lot more ice and a lot less rock than thought, the Christian Science Monitor reports. There are still a lot of mysteries to be solved. Scientists hope the first close-up look at Pluto's surface will explain features like heart- and doughnut-shaped features recently spotted for the first time. LiveScience notes that new information from Pluto could help explain how our own planet formed and how life began. "There's a feeling among scientists that Pluto probably will tell us what the early solar system looked like and it's now locked in deep freeze and maybe it will tell us what we once were, a long time ago," the director of the Deep Space Communication Complex tells Reuters. The Australian facility will be first to receive new information from the spacecraft. New Horizons isn't done. New Horizons will keep traveling into the Kuiper Belt debris field and beyond after it passes Pluto, National Geographic notes, and it may have more research to do if NASA approves funding. (The astronomer who first spotted Pluto in 1930 is the spacecraft's only passenger.)