The historic flyby completed the initial reconnaissance of the solar system's nine traditionally recognized planets and revealed a stunning complexity and diversity of terrain, from nitrogen glaciers to towering mountains of rock-hard water ice. Hollywood couldn't have planned it better. Pluto flyby photos: New Horizons leader Alan Stern reveals 10 favorite views. Even at that blistering pace, it still took the probe 9.
And in the home stretch of that deep-space trek, New Horizons suffered a glitch that threatened to scuttle the epic encounter entirely. The spacecraft went dark for 90 minutes on July 4, , sending mission team members scrambling.
But they were up to the challenge, in short order diagnosing and fixing the problem — an overloaded main computer that was trying to do two big things at once. This high-pressure troubleshooting was far from routine, Stern stressed, praising the talent, preparation and dedication of the mission-operations team. If the same glitch had cropped up just two days later, he added, it probably would have been too late to salvage the flyby. A mere three days after the glitch, New Horizons photographed a stunning sight: a huge, heart-shaped feature on Pluto's reddish surface.
Pluto's now-iconic heart came into sharper and sharper focus over the ensuing days, as did the rest of the dwarf planet's "encounter hemisphere" the side that New Horizons flew over. And then came closest approach. On July 14, New Horizons skimmed just over Pluto, photographing and studying a staggering diversity of terrain.
For example, the heart — now known as Tombaugh Regio, after Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh — is bordered in places by 2-mile-high 3 km mountains made not of rock but of water ice. Were it not for the efforts of The Planetary Society, its members, and its supporters, the New Horizons mission might never have gotten off the drawing board.
From to , NASA considered but ultimately rejected 4 separate Pluto missions before approving New Horizons for further development in The Planetary Society tirelessly fought for the mission with letter-writing campaigns, Congressional visits, and public outreach.
Under this faint illumination, the researchers found one spot that was brighter than its surroundings, which is probably a deposit of nitrogen or methane ice. They also found that the south pole appeared to be much less bright than the north pole. New Horizons was so busy gathering data in its July encounter that, as planned, the spacecraft didn't communicate with Earth during its closest approach to Pluto and the dwarf planet's largest moon, Charon.
Controllers celebrated when New Horizons phoned home, as they knew that data was on the way. Pluto's distance, about 3 billion miles 5 billion km from Earth, presented power challenges for the New Horizons designers since the sun's rays at that distance are too weak to generate power.
There are also long communications delays for those staying in touch with the 1,lb. When New Horizons reached Pluto, it took 4. This was because New Horizons could only transmit about kilobits of data per second and there were about 6. It was undoubtedly worth the wait. Early pictures from New Horizons showed a surprisingly young surface on Pluto, with a mountain range as high as 11, feet 3, meters.
Believed to be about million years old at most, this range likely points to recent geological activity on the surface, but it's unclear what caused it. More youthful terrain — such as a huge plain bereft of craters, just north of the mountainous range — popped up in pictures sent back in mid-July of The zone has been informally named Sputnik Planitia and is a region of intense scrutiny, given that geologists are still trying to figure out what caused it.
Fortunately, the moons were found well ahead of the Pluto encounter, and New Horizons faced no obstacles while whizzing through Pluto's system. Some of New Horizons' other scientific discoveries included evidence of a past subsurface ocean on Charon and strange water-ice hills on Pluto floating in frozen nitrogen.
In , one study suggested that there may be an asphalt layer on Pluto , just beneath the world's surface. Some scientists have also suggested that Pluto could have the ingredients for life on its surface, even at its great distance from the sun. Related: Meet the unknown female mathematician whose calculations helped discover Pluto.
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