Now the Twittersphere is having fun with that photo of principal investigator Prof Alan Stern...  

Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News

New Horizons is an American mission paid for by American taxpayers (thank you). But run through the team members and you’re sure to find some Brits.  

Perhaps the best-known are senior scientists like Fran Bagenal, who grew up in my part of the world (Cambridge), and John Spencer, who’s a Lancashire man. He confesses to still listening to the cricket on the radio even though he’s spent most of his career in the US.  

And then there are the younger scientists like Carly Howett. She hails from Essex and is now affiliated to the Southwest Research Institute, working on New Horizons' Ralph colour camera.  

When I asked her what the past few days have been like, she said: “It’s like England winning the World Cup at the same time as the Ashes, thrown in with Olympic golds and Murray winning Wimbledon.”

Yep, she’s a Brit.

While we all anxiously await the fruits of its labour, New Horizons keeps on moving...

This photo shows New Horizons team members looking over newly downlinked data.

Something seems to have caught Alan Stern's eye! The mission chief is centre right looking rather excited.

Image source, NASA/Associated Press

Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News

One of the pictures we'll get in the next release from the New Horizons team will look very similar to the full-frame image of Pluto that was acquired just before the flyby. Indeed it was taken just 15 minutes prior to the view that so wowed the world. 

The differences between the two will therefore be quite subtle, but they will also be very important. This new image that's coming is the partner image that makes a stereo pair. Stereo is a critical tool to planetary scientists when they're trying to interpret features on the surface. 

 "When you look at an enigmatic surreal terrain, your eye cannot tell which is up and which is down, and the stereo gives you that," explains Will Grundy, a team-member from the Lowell Observatory. 

 "You cannot do shape from shading, because you just have no idea whether the slopes that are tilted towards you are also brighter or are they brighter only because they are illuminated by the sun." 

If you look at Tuesday's stretched-colour image of Pluto, it revealed that the "heart" had two distinct "ventricles", and the division between the two was very pronounced. But what does it signify? Does it indicate different materials, maybe different surface and atmospheric processes at play? 

Before you can start to answer those kinds of questions, you need elevation information. One half of the heart could be a basin, one half could be a plateau - and different things can happen in such diverse settings. 

I don't know if the team will present the pair together, but if they do we'll likely need some of those funny glasses to see the stereo effect. 

Speculation is growing about some of the details that images, expected in a few hours from New Horizons, will reveal about the surface of Pluto. 

Co-investigator Will Grundy has been quoted on social media as saying that Pluto is covered in exotic ices - Nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide - in fact, he says, we've not even made some of these ices in the lab yet! 

No tell-tale signs of liquid on the surface, but he can't rule out sub-surface liquids.

This sounds promising!

Andy Rivkin is a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, home of the New Horizons operations centre. 

Our science editor David Shukman is also at the operations centre in Baltimore, looking forward to the new results. 

The New Horizons spacecraft is now splitting its time between taking more measurements and sending priority data home.

It will take more than a year to send all of its Pluto payload - not only is the distance vast, but the maximum transmission speed is one kilobit (125 bytes) per second.

NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel makes an earthbound comparison:

Remember you can check when and where signals from New Horizons (code NHPC) are being received on the web page for Nasa's Deep Space Network, external - currently the goods are coming via Australia...

Image source, NASA

Social media has really taken Pluto to heart - especially the heart shaped region that dominates yesterday's spectacular image. It's been the subject of countless tweets and even members of the New Horizons mission team are getting in on the act.

It didn't all end yesterday! New Horizons is still moving at more than 30,000mph...

This series of images shows how far we came yesterday in our view of Pluto.

Today, the images will get another 10 times better.

The "first look" batch of data, including close-up photos of Pluto and Charon from the flyby, has been spotted by Prof Chris Lintott from the BBC's The Sky At Night.

(He has been watching - closely - the live website, external for Nasa's Deep Space Network of antennas, which receive the signals after their 5bn km journey...) 

You can expect a lot more from New Horizons over the next day or so - especially at the next main Nasa announcement, expected at 20:00 BST on Wednesday. 

But particularly if you're in the UK (like the online team running this live page) it is probably time for some shut-eye!

Check back tomorrow for more updates - and write down this time:

The name of mission operations manager (MOM) Alice Bowman is now trending on Twitter.

It was also chanted in the auditorium during the briefing - and the journalists in attendance were all on board...

Alan Stern tells the room that the packet of data his team expects to receive on Wednesday morning, US time, has been dubbed "the New York Times data set".

Why?

Alan Stern, New Horizons mission chief, is speaking now at the briefing (use the Live Coverage tab above).

Half an hour ago he sent this tweet.

Nasa science chief John Grunsfeld emphasises that this is just the beginning - comparing today's flyby event to the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars.

All the science is still on its way.

Sitting among the journalists and other visitors to the operations centre are some special guests...

Image source, NASA