New Horizons Probe Has Sent First Full Family Photo of Pluto and Its Five Moons
NASA's New Horizons probe has sent back the first images of the Pluto and the five moons that orbit it.
"New Horizons is now on the threshold of discovery," said mission science team member John Spencer, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "If the spacecraft observes any additional moons as we get closer to Pluto, they will be worlds that no one has seen before."
Pluto was discovered in 1930 and its first moon, Charon was found only in 1978. Two more moons were spotted in 2005.
Expectedly, the probe will make the closest flyby on July 14 and then we can get a better idea what might be out there.
The probe is currently 55 million miles away from its target and is speeding onwards at four kilometers per second (8,950 miles per hour). It snapped its first images between April 25 and May 1 using the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), and NASA astroboffins later processed them and strung them together into an animated film, The Register noted.
As the probe gets closer to the dwarf planet, all of its instruments will get switched on to full operating speeds to try and grab as much information as possible in the short time available. It then has to be sent back and laboriously analyzed for useful information.
