Business Insider:
If everything goes according to plan, a NASA spacecraft, called New Horizons, will fly by Pluto at 7:49 am ET. New Horizons is the first spacecraft in history to ever visit Pluto, and it’s been a long time coming after 9 years in space.
NASA will stream live countdown coverage of the event starting at 7:30 am, followed by a briefing on the mission from 8:00 to 9:00 am ET.
It’s more than a little mind boggling to think that something we flung into space nine years ago is now about to send us pictures of the tiny little planet.
But according to the IAU, it’s not a planet 🙁 I’ll always be one to me though.
The New Horizons launched four months before my older son was born. Mind boggling.
The math involved is utterly stunning in its complexity.
It is amazing. I can’t wait to see the high res pictures.
I love this stuff!
Anything that has 5 moons (or more) gets to be called a planet, as far as I’m concerned.
I’m trying to remember if it was an old Wired article that once profiled the amazing math nerds who calculate flight paths for these missions… knowing more or less exactly what course, thrust, and timing it’d take to slingshot a hunk of metal around a planet or two, over the space of years.