New Horizons Has Flown Past Pluto. Here's What Comes Next.

LA Times ^ | July 14, 2015 | Deborah Netburn

[lbryce]

New Horizons' long journey to Pluto ended in an instant early this morning, when the NASA spacecraft went screaming past the dwarf planet at 30,800 mph -- but the mission is far from over.

Even as the spacecraft speeds deeper into the Kuiper belt, its instruments will continue to search for signs of faint rings around the small world and take measurements of the dust and plasma in Pluto's neighborhood.

And then there's all the new data that it has to get back to Earth.

Little world, big heart: Pluto stuns in New Horizons image Little world, big heart: Pluto stuns in New Horizons image New Horizons stopped communicating with ground control at 8:17 p.m. Pacific time Monday, and it is not expected to resume contact again until 6:02 p.m. Tuesday.

The 22-hour period of silence was deliberate. The flyby window was extremely brief and mission architects wanted all of New Horizons' power to be focused on data collection, rather than checking in with Earth.

lRelated Why New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto will be just 8 minutes long SCIENCE NOW Why New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto will be just 8 minutes long SEE ALL RELATED 8 If all goes well, the spacecraft will keep its 6:02 p.m. appointment, and send a 16-minute phone-home signal to the ground team, letting them know that all the instruments are still working and that it survived its encounter with the Pluto system unscathed.

The first batch of new data from the flyby will start to arrive on Earth at 2:32 a.m. Wednesday, and it will include the highest-resolution images taken by the spacecraft, when it was less than 7,800 miles from Pluto's surface.

[free_life]

There is a Pluto ping list? Add me please.