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Probe to Pluto is a terrific achievement
At 9:49 a.m. Tuesday, the New Horizons spacecraft zoomed to within 7,800 miles of Pluto, flying by the dwarf planet at 30,800 mph to complete a journey that has covered 3 billion miles and taken 9 1/2 years.
Pluto was the ninth, and final, planet in our solar system when New Horizons launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 19, 2006. It has since been demoted to a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union, much to the consternation of Las Crucens who still celebrate the fact that Pluto was discovered in 1930 by our own Clyde Tombaugh.
Tombaugh's ashes are on board the New Horizons, and two of his children were among those present at the flight operations center at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory for the flyby.
Fans of our most famous astronomer are celebrating with two months of special events that include talks, star parties, workshops, art and science projects, exhibits and a big Plutopalooza party on July 25.
It will take as long as 16 months to retrieve all the data collected by New Horizons during this brief flyby, and years after that to fully study and understand it. But we've already made a few new discoveries.
Pluto is a bit larger than we had thought, about 376 miles in radius. It's interior is likely less dense than had been believed, with more ice and less rocks. Photographs taken by New Horizons show dark poles on Pluto's moon that had never been seen before in our solar system.
By the time they are done all of the data has been collected and analyzed, it is expected that we will know what the topography of the planet is like, and the temperature of its surface.
The mission represents a success for the new public-private model for space exploration. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland designed, built and operated the spacecraft. The entire mission cost about $700 million.
Scientists in charge of the mission, as well as NASA brass, hope the new observations will restore Pluto to a full planet, The Associated Press reported.
We would love to see that. But regardless of Pluto's official status, the successful mission of New Horizons was a terrific accomplishment.
"Dad would have been totally thrilled with this adventure and the fact that his ashes are on board to honor him," said Alden Tombaugh, who, with his sister, recently returned from ceremonies honoring their father at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, site of Pluto's discovery.