Pluto close-up: Spacecraft makes flyby of icy, mystery world

As it has neared the dwarf planet, the probe has been sending back increasingly clearer images of its target, and got as close as possible at around 11.50am GMT Tuesday – that’s 12.50pm United Kingdom time, 4.50am Pacific time or 9.50pm Australian time. The probe traveled more than 3 billion miles to reach Pluto.

The New Horizons mission is the final destination on NASA’s planetary tour of the solar system, which began more than a half-century ago.

Over the last nine years it has travelled three billion miles.

“It’s all thanks to New Horizons, a thousand-pound space probe NASA sent spinning through space at 31,000 miles per hour”. But official confirmation won’t come until Tuesday night, 13 nerve-racking hours later.

The image above is an artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.

NASA marked the moment live on TV, broadcasting from flight operations in Maryland.

NASA’s Amy Shira Teitel explains why the New Horizons spacecraft is going dark as it passes Pluto.

The mission released a new image of the dwarf planet, and the Kuiper Belt solar system in which its sits.

Kopernik Observatory will hold an event titled “Pluto Palooza” on Wednesday- to view never before seen photos captured by New Horizons.

And traces of Pluto’s nitrogen-rich atmosphere have been found farther from the dwarf planet than anticipated.

The result confirms that Pluto is larger than all other known solar system objects beyond the orbit of Neptune, the U.S. space agency said in a statement. That’s about 50 miles bigger than previous estimates in the low range.

But if you missed it, there’s good news.

“This is a very alien world that we’re visiting”, New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern said of Pluto Monday, ahead of the flyby.

Stern said mission managers will decide later this year where to point New Horizons for the next part of its journey. This unknown territory is a shooting gallery of comets and other small bodies, and its elements “preserve evidence about the early formation of the solar system”.

New Horizons was launched in January 2006, a couple of months before Twitter even existed – but it’s likely that social media will be integral to sharing the experience of passing by the ex-planet by millions.