NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto at around 7:50 a.m. EDT today, arriving 72 seconds earlier than expected and missing its aim point by about 45 miles (70 kilometers) — not bad after a 9.5-year, 3-billion-mile (5 billion km) journey and well within the probe’s target zone. Principal Investigator Alan Stern led a large group of scientists, enthusiasts, and media gathered at the site of mission operations at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, in a countdown to closest approach.

Alan Stern unleashed his science officers with new images and new science, and the first to drop were the highest resolution color pics of Pluto and Charon yet.



Each shows some pretty cool stuff. For Pluto, the biggest revelation is that the big heart is actually two different colors. It also snows on Pluto. Great! Endured the historic 3-billion-mile voyage just to arrive on a planet modeled after Syracuse (in January).

Sources: Astronomy Magazine, and Wired.