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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — NASA scientists and planet lovers everywhere are cheering the Pluto space probe, which is now sending images of the dwarf planet back to Earth. The cost of the 10-year voyage is raising eyebrows, but not for the reasons you might think. (snip) The edge-of-the-solar-system breakthrough cost $720 million. That’s less than the cost of the $1 billion Vikings stadium. And less than half the $1.7 billion price tag of the Southwest Rail Project.

The first age of solar system exploration is in the books. Related Stories NASA's New Horizons probe flew by Pluto this morning (July 14), capturing history's first up-close looks at the far-flung world — if all went according to plan. (Mission team members won't declare success until they hear from New Horizons tonight.) Closest approach came at 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 GMT), when the spacecraft whizzed within 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) of Pluto's frigid surface. More at link

The latest data downloaded from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft suggests that mountains of nitrogen ice thousands of feet high have evaporated into Pluto's atmosphere since the dwarf planet formed 4.5 billion years ago, and hundreds of tons of that gas escape into space each hour. New images of Pluto meanwhile show land forms that suggest heat is rising beneath the surface, with troughs of dark matter either collecting or bubbling up between flat segments of crust. Scientists discussed the findings Friday in their second major release of data collected when the $700 million New Horizons mission made a historic pass...

Towering mountains of water ice rise up to 3500 meters tall on Pluto, above smooth plains covered in veneers of nitrogen and methane ice, NASA’s New Horizons team announced today. The discovery, along with the finding that parts of the dwarf planet’s surface are crater-free and therefore relatively young, points to a place that has been geologically reworked in the recent past. “It could even be active today,” said John Spencer, a New Horizons team member at Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) in Boulder, Colorado, at a press conference today at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel,...

Explanation: It took 9.5 years to get this close, but you can now take a virtual flight over Pluto in this animation of image data from the New Horizons spacecraft. The Plutonian terrain unfolding 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) below is identified as Norgay Montes, followed by Sputnik Planum. The icy mountains, informally named for one of the first two Mount Everest climbers Tenzing Norgay, reach up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface. The frozen, young, craterless plains are informally named for the Earth's first artificial satellite. Sputnik Planum is north of Norgay Montes, within Pluto's expansive, bright, heart-shaped...

Whenever mankind achieves something extraordinary that pushes the boundaries of what is possible, there are some naysayers who refuse to believe it has happened. It turns out there are some out there who think that Nasa has faked the stunning images of Pluto and its moons sent back by the New Horizons space craft this week. Rather than marvelling at the extraordinary detail they have revealed of mountains of ice, craters and canyons on Pluto’s surface, they instead insist it is all an elaborate lie. One individual, who calls himself Crrow ...used images from his own telescope in his back...

Use this link below Very Cool Animated Flyover of Pluto’s Icy Mountain and Plains New Horizons spacecraft will do its closest flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015. “The Wait” alludes to not just New Horizons’ 9-year, 3-billion-mile journey, but also the anticipation of people from all walks of life, excited about the first good look at Pluto. Don’t miss it as the fastest moving spacecraft to date is nearing the end of an epic journey to visit the final unexplored planet in our solar system and beyond, to the new horizons we will discover on the other side. Music...

A vast, craterless plain of Plutonian ice no more than 100 million years old and centered amidst Pluto’s big ‘heart’ was unveiled in spectacular new imagery taken by NASA’s resounding successful New Horizons mission, during its history making rapid transit through the Pluto-Charon binary planet system barely three days ago, on Tuesday, July 14. The jaw dropping new imagery was publicly released today, July 17, by NASA and scientists leading the New Horizons mission during a media briefing, and has already resulted in ground breaking new scientific discoveries at the last planet in our solar system to be visited by...

Explanation: Icy world Charon is 1,200 kilometers across. That makes Pluto's largest moon only about 1/10th the size of planet Earth but a whopping 1/2 the diameter of Pluto itself. Charon is seen in unprecedented detail in this image from New Horizons. The image was captured late July 13 during the spacecraft's flight through the Plutonian system from a range of less than 500,000 kilometers. For reference, the distance separating Earth and Moon is less than 400,000 kilometers. Charonian terrain, described as surprising, youthful, and varied, includes a 1,000 kilometer swath of cliffs and troughs stretching below center, a 7...

Explanation: A 50 mile (80 kilometer) trip across Pluto would cover the distance indicated by the scale bar in this startling image. The close-up of the icy world's rugged equatorial terrain was captured when the New Horizons spacecraft was about 47,800 miles (77,000 kilometers) from the surface, 1.5 hours before its closest approach. Rising to an estimated 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) the mountains are likely composed of water ice. Suggesting surprising geological activity, they are also likely young with an estimated age of 100 million years or so based on the apparent absence of craters. The region pictured is near...

Scientists leading NASA’s historic New Horizons mission to the Pluto system announced the first of what is certain to be a tidal wave of new discoveries, including the totally unexpected finding of young ice mountains at Pluto and crispy clear views of young fractures on its largest moon Charon, at a NASA media briefing today (July 15) at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. A treasure trove of long awaited data has begun streaming back to Mission Control at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to the mouth watering delight of researchers and NASA. With the first ever...

NASA has released the first images taken during New Horizons’ historic flyby of dwarf planet Pluto.(This is an excerpt).

NYT:Space and CosmosNYT:NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Sends Signal From Pluto to Earth NYT:Images of Pluto From NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft

Was watching BBC Europe yesterday -flicked it on the the hotel for five minutes while unpacking- and the amount of left wing pom-pom shaking they can pack into a brief period of time is just about any intellectually-honest person can stomach... And that's regardless of political bias -like we never knew The Beebe leaned to the left. But it's relentless these days... I used to admire their professionalism and world coverage in the 80s/90s, as I still do the Telegraph, etc. British press is in many ways superior to my own country's, imho- even car magazines, i.e. CAR was a...

New Horizons has obtained impressive new images of Pluto and its large moon Charon that highlight their compositional diversity. These are not actual color images of Pluto and Charon—they are shown here in exaggerated colors that make it easy to note the differences in surface material and features on each planetary body. The images were obtained using three of the color filters of the “Ralph” instrument on July 13 at 3:38 am EDT. New Horizons has seven science instruments on board the spacecraft—including “Ralph” and “Alice”, whose names are a throwback to the “Honeymooners,” a popular 1950s sitcom. “These images...

Explanation: New Horizons has survived its close encounter with Pluto and has resumed sending back images and data. The robotic spacecraft reported back on time, with all systems working, and with the expected volume of data stored. Featured here is the highest resolution image of Pluto taken before closest approach, an image that really brings Pluto into a satisfying focus. At first glance, Pluto is reddish and has several craters. Toward the image bottom is a surprisingly featureless light-covered region that resembles an iconic heart, and mountainous terrain appears on the lower right. This image, however, is only the beginning....

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...

New Horizons spacecraft phones home confirming successful fly-by of Pluto. Link provided for live press conference that begins at 9:30 PM EDT.

Click HERE for YouTube video. Warning: There are a few mild curse words in the video.

At 7:49 a.m. EDT today New Horizons made history when it zoomed within 7,800 miles of Pluto, the most remote object ever visited in the Solar System. Pluto has a very complex surface. The fact that large areas show few craters – as compared to say, Ceres or Vesta – shows that there have relatively recent changes there. Maybe very recent. Alan Stern, principal investigator for the mission, was asked by a report at this morning’s press conference if it snows on Pluto. His answer: “It sure looks like it.”