Pluto close-up: Spacecraft makes flyby of icy, mystery world
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — We’ve made it to Pluto by NASA’s calculations, the last stop on a planetary tour of the solar system a half-century in the making.
The moment of closest approach for the New Horizons spacecraft came around 7:49 a.m. EDT Tuesday, culminating an epic journey from planet Earth that spanned more than 3 billion miles and 9 1/2 years.
“This is truly a hallmark in human history,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s science mission chief. “It’s been an incredible voyage.”
Based on everything NASA knows, New Horizons was pretty much straight on course for the historic encounter, sweeping within 7,700 miles of Pluto at 31,000 mph. It actually happened 72 seconds earlier and about 40 miles closer than anticipated.
But official confirmation of the flyby wasn’t due until Tuesday night, 13 nerve-racking hours later. That’s because NASA wants New Horizons taking pictures of Pluto, its jumbo moon Charon and its four little moons during this critical time, not gabbing to Earth.
In a cosmic coincidence, the encounter occurred 50 years after Mariner 4’s flyby of Mars that yielded the first close-up pictures of the red planet.
“I think it’s fitting that on the 50th anniversary we complete the initial reconnaissance of the planets with the exploration of Pluto,” said principal scientist Alan Stern.
The United States is now the only nation to visit every single planet in the solar system. Pluto was No. 9 in the lineup when New Horizons departed Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 19, 2006, but was demoted seven months later to dwarf status. Scientists in charge of the $720 million mission, as well as NASA brass, hope the new observations will restore Pluto’s honor.
“It’s a huge morning, a huge day not just for NASA but for the United States,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said from NASA headquarters in Washington.
NASA marked the moment live on TV, broadcasting from flight operations at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft’s developer and manager.
Inside “countdown central” in Laurel, Maryland, hundreds jammed together to share in the final minutes, including the two children of the late American astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh. The actual flight control room was empty save for a worker sweeping up; the spacecraft was preprogrammed for the flyby and there was nothing anyone could do at that point but join in the celebration.
The crowd waved U.S. flags and counted down the seconds, screaming, cheering and applauding. Chants of “USA!” broke out.