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Watch NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Make Its Closest Approach To Pluto

Watch Pluto-Bound Spacecraft Make Historic Flyby
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Senior Science Editor, The Huffington Post

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Update (July 14, 7:49 a.m. EDT): After a nine-year journey, traveling more than 3 billion miles, New Horizons has made its closest approach to Pluto.

It's showtime for NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.

The Pluto-bound probe will zoom past the dwarf planet, making its closest approach on Tuesday at 7:49 a.m. EDT -- and it will offer the first-ever up-close glimpse of our solar system's beloved Pluto. You can watch a live countdown to the closest approach and a discussion of the historic event on a NASA TV livestream (above).

"What NASA's doing with New Horizons is unprecedented in our time and probably something close to the last train to Clarksville, the last picture show, for a very, very long time," Dr. Alan Stern, principal investigator for the $700 million New Horizons mission, told The Associated Press. "We're going to knock your socks off."

The unmanned spacecraft is expected to get within 7,767 miles of Pluto. It will sweep past the dwarf planet at about 30,800 miles per hour with a suite of seven science instruments poised to gather data and take images of the icy world.

Pluto as seen from New Horizons on July 11, 2015.

The New Horizons mission launched in January 2006. And now, after a journey of more than nine years and about 3 billion miles, the New Horizons spacecraft is ready for its closest look at the Pluto system.

Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.

It turns out New Horizons won't be working alone. A fleet of NASA observatories are scheduled to gather data around the same time as the historic flyby. That will allow scientists to piece together varying sources of information about the dwarf planet.

For instance, as New Horizons makes its closest approach to Pluto, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will take an image of the dwarf planet from its station in orbit around Saturn. And after the flyby, the Spitzer Space Telescope is scheduled to begin a seven-day series of observations on July 23.

"With their unique capabilities combined, we will have a multifaceted view of the Pluto system complementary to New Horizons data," Dr. Paul Hertz, director of NASA's astrophysics division, said in a written statement.

You can follow along with the New Horizons spacecraft on social media by using the hashtag #PlutoFlyby and visiting the mission's Facebook page.

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Before You Go

Wonders Of Astronomy
Pluto's Tiny Moon(01 of09)
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In July, NASA said that its Hubble Space Telescope discovered an eight to 21-mile-wide moon circling the dwarf planet. (credit:NASA, ESA, and M. Showalter (SETI Institute))
Huge Mountain Discovered On Asteroid(02 of09)
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NASA's Dawn, an ion-propelled spacecraft that traveled 1.7 billion miles before reaching the asteroid Vesta in July, sent back images in October revealing that Vesta is home to a mountain larger than any mountain on Earth.In December, NASA released new images that Dawn took when it was orbiting only 130 miles above the asteroid, the closest it will get to Vesta. Dawn will continue to image Vesta until next summer, when it will make its way to Ceres, a bigger asteroid. (credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)
'Star Wars'-Like Planet(03 of09)
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NASA's Kepler spacecraft found a planet that orbits two suns, driving fans of the "Star Wars" franchise to call it a real-life Tatooine.Astronomers announced Kepler-16b, which is the first circumbinary planet -- meaning it orbits two stars -- in September.Click here for more on Kepler-16b. (credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)
'Habitable Zone' Planet Found(04 of09)
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Scientists in early December announced the discovery of Kepler-22b, a planet with a temperature of around 72 degrees that's in the so-called "Goldilocks," or habitable zone. While the temperature of the 600-light-year away planet could sustain water, it has a radius of 2.4 times that of Earth's, so it's probably too big to harbor life. (credit:NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech)
Biggest Black Holes Ever Discovered(05 of09)
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Astronomers announced in early December that they had found the biggest black holes to date.The massive black holes, which are 10 billion times the size of the sun, are located over 300 million light years away. (credit:NOAO)
Europa's 'Great Lakes'(06 of09)
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Scientists had long-thought that a large body of water existed under the surface of Europa, Jupiter's moon, but it was thought to be tens of miles below an icy crust. In November, though, astronomers analyzing data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft found evidence that suggests blocks of ice interact with water below the surface, which could mean that nutrients and energy are moving between the underground ocean and icy shell.Britney Schmidt, the lead author of the study, which appeared in the journal Nature, said that the interaction "could make Europa and its ocean more habitable for life."Click here to read more about water on Europa. (credit:NASA/Ted Stryk)
'Bubbles' At The Edge Of Solar System(07 of09)
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NASA's Voyager probes -- launched over 30 years ago -- found huge magnetic "bubbles" at the edge of the solar system."The sun's magnetic field extends all the way to the edge of the solar system," astronomer Merav Opher of Boston University said in a NASA statement. "Because the sun spins, its magnetic field becomes twisted and wrinkled, a bit like a ballerina's skirt. Far, far away from the sun, where the Voyagers are, the folds of the skirt bunch up."Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched in 1977. Voyager 1 is currently 11 billion miles away and may exit our solar system within the next few years. (credit:NASA)
Gypsum On Mars(08 of09)
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In December, scientists announced that NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity may have found gypsum that had been deposited by water."This tells a slam-dunk story that water flowed through underground fractures in the rock," Steve Squyres, a planetary scientist at Cornell University and the principal investigator for Opportunity said in a NASA statement. NASA's Curiosity Rover is en route to the Red Planet and will arrive in August 2012. (credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU)
Earth-Size Planets Discovered(09 of09)
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Weeks after the announcement of Kepler-22b, scientists said that they'd discovered Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, two planets that are about the size of Earth. While the planets are too close to their sun-like star to harbor life as we know it, the discovery proved that the Kepler spacecraft was capable of spotting planets that are Earth-size, and brings us one step closer to finding a true Earth twin.Click here for more on the new planets. (credit:NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech)
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