In a bid to explore every planet in the Solar system, US space agency Nasa started with Venus in 1962 and has recorded huge successes since then. The next step in man’s long space journey is the Nasa spacecraft set to hurtle past Pluto at more than 45,000 kilometres per hour.
According to US space scientist this mission will marks the end of the US space agency’s bid to explore every planet in the solar system.
The spacecraft called New Horizons has also revealed the dwarf planet to be larger than scientists thought at first.
Today’s record coincides with the 50th anniversary of the first ever fly-by of Mars by the Mariner 4 probe.
New horizons revealed that Pluto is 2,370 kilometers across, roughly two-thirds the size of Earth’s moon.
New horizons revealed that Pluto is 2,370 kilometers across, roughly two-thirds the size of Earth’s moon.
The lead scientist on the project Alan Stern, who went on a $700m (£450m) mission, said the increased dimensions meant Pluto must hold more ice and less rock beneath its surface than researchers had expected.
Pluto has been hard to measure with any accuracy from Earth because it is so far away, and its atmosphere creates mirages that can fool ground-based telescopes.
According to news report, other instruments onboard New Horizons confirmed that Pluto’s North Pole bears an icy cap.
The latest measurements beamed to Earth from the probe picked up chemical signatures of methane and nitrogen ice in the polar cap.
The early image received from New Horizons last week showed Pluto as an orangey globe bearing a large bright spot shaped like a heart.
More recent images have revealed cliffs, craters and chasms larger than the Grand Canyon.
“The science we’ve already made is mouth-watering,” said Stern. “The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and its alien beauty.”
Scientist noted that the New Horizons will perform its historic flyby on Tuesday (today).
Scientists must however wait until 2am on Wednesday for the probe to make contact with Earth and confirm it has survived the encounter.
When it comes to landmark achievements in space exploration, today will be a date for the history books as the day humanity reached Pluto for the first time.
According to reports the New Horizons spacecraft has spent more than nine years on its 4.8bn kilometer journey to Pluto, the last world in the solar system to be visited by a spacecraft.
On board are seven sophisticated instruments and the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930.
In January 2006 when the probe blasted off, Pluto was the ninth planet in the solar system.
Seven months later, astronomers at the International Astronomical Union voted to downgrade the icy body to a dwarf planet, because it does not dominate its region of space in the way the other major planets do.
Space Scientists pointed out that this spacecraft will take scores of photographs as it speeds past Pluto and its five known moons, Charon, Hydra, Nix, STyx and Kerberos.
The images will give the first close-up view of the mountains and valleys of the unknown world, and its tenuous atmosphere seen as the sun rises and sets behind it. Instruments on New Horizons might even find evidence that it snows on the tiny world.
Nasa officials expect the first images from the flyby to be released on Wednesday night. The snapshots from onboard
cameras will capture details up to 100 meters across, a vast improvement on those taken on approach, which pick out features about 15 kilometers across.
cameras will capture details up to 100 meters across, a vast improvement on those taken on approach, which pick out features about 15 kilometers across.
They expect to have a long wait to learn everything New Horizons sees. The probe will collect so much information as it passes Pluto that it will take 16 months to send it all back to Earth.
It is expected to take a photograph of just one side of the planet.
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