MIAMI (US):
An unmanned NASA spacecraft will see what Pluto’s surface really looks like for the first time today, beaming images back to Earth as it speeds by the dwarf planet after a near decade-long journey.
New Horizons is about the size of a baby grand piano and has been described as the fastest spaceship ever built. It is currently moving at a speed of 49,570 kilometers per hour.
NASA is gearing to receive the information from the far-flung space explorer that will reveal specifics of Pluto previously only subject to speculation.
The closest approach is set for 7:49 AM (1719 IST). NASA television coverage begins at 7:30 AM.
“Spacecraft is 47,000 miles from Pluto & taking a stereo mosaic at 1 mile per pixel (resolution),” NASA’s New Horizons team tweeted this morning.
But it will be hours before scientists hear back from the spacecraft – the first to visit an unexplored planet since the NASA Voyager missions launched in the 1970s – because New Horizons will be busy snapping pictures and collecting data.
It is supposed to send a “phone home” signal to Earth at 4:20 PM, but that will take nearly five hours to reach scientists.
So NASA will not announce until about 13 hours after the flyby, at 9:02 PM (0632 IST tomorrow), whether or not the spacecraft survives the high-speed encounter.
But there were some jitters as the USD 700 million spacecraft sped toward the last undiscovered frontier in the solar system. (AGENCIES)
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