LONDON: An unmanned NASA spacecraft whizzed by Pluto, beaming to scientists a message that it survived its historic encounter before sending back the closest look ever of the distant dwarf planet.
After a three-billion-mile (4.8-billion-kilometer) journey that took nearly 10 years, the nuclear-powered New Horizons—about the size of a baby grand piano—snapped pictures of Pluto as it hurtled by on auto-pilot.
The photos will reveal details of Pluto never seen before in the history of space travel. The images are to be released by the US space agency on Wednesday, once they are downlinked from New Horizons.
New Horizons is moving faster than any spacecraft ever built, at a speed of about 30,800 miles per hour.
Some 13 hours after the flyby, applause broke out in mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Center outside the US capital Washington, as the spacecraft made its “phone-home” contact with Earth and all systems were reported to be intact.
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