On July 14, 2015 NASA’s spacecraft New Horizons became the first probe to ever visit Pluto. It successfully flew past the icy planet at 7:49 am EDT Tuesday.
Since its launch in 2006 New Horizons traveled 3 billion-mile. This long-term voyage took nine and a half years.
On its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed measurements and observations of Pluto, and its moons: Charon (the largest moon), Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. And for the first time in human history, it’s going to let us set eyes upon a mysterious new world. Everyone has been waiting for this historic moment. And finally it has happened!
The splendid, high-resolution photos of Pluto will reveal many unknown detail of craters, icy plains and possible mountain ranges on its surface.
A couple of words about Pluto. It was discovered in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, and was considered the 9 planet from the Sun. Pluto is named after the god of the underworld.
After 1992, the status of Pluto as a planet fell into question following the discovery of several objects of similar size in the Kuiper belt. In 2006, Pluto was reclassified as a member of the new “dwarf planet” category. Some astronomers believe Pluto should still be considered a planet.
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