Summary

  • Nasa's spacecraft New Horizons soared past Pluto at 12:50 BST on 13 July

  • After a tense wait, its first post-flyby communication was received at 01:52 BST on 14 July

  • The probe's historic early pictures of Pluto included a close-up of mountains over 3,000m high

  • Both the dwarf planet and its giant moon Charon appear to have surprisingly active geology

  • A bright, heart-shaped region on Pluto's surface was named Tombaugh Regio after the planet's discoverer

  1. Indications of a triumphpublished at 02:19

    Jonathan Amos
    Science correspondent, BBC News

    The crucial call came over what were called the autonomy logs - these recorded any upsets that New Horizons might have had during the flyby. 

    The fact that it had none meant the observation sequence must have run without a hitch. 

    Controllers will not know until they examine what is in the memory that they did indeed have the data - but all the indications are that this historic fly by was a triumph. 

  2. Still talking...published at 02:07

    If you go to the website for Nasa's Deep Space Network you can still see the signal coming through from New Horizons to Madrid.

    https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html, external

    It will drop shortly, Jonathan Amos explains:

  3. Smiles all roundpublished at 02:02 British Summer Time 15 July 2015

    Our correspondents at mission control are enjoying the atmosphere.

  4. Tick, tick... and tickpublished at 01:58

    Quote Message

    We have a healthy spacecraft, we have recorded data from the Pluto system, and we are outbound from Pluto.

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    I can't express how I feel! It's just like we planned it!"

    Alice Bowman, New Horizons mission operations manager

  5. Postpublished at 01:57 British Summer Time 15 July 2015

    "We are in lock with telemetry from the spacecraft," said mission operations manager Alice Bowman.

    And the house came down.

    Waiting for a few more details from New Horizons now...

    mission control roomImage source, NASA
  6. The probe phoned home!published at 01:54
    Breaking

    First post-flyby signal received at mission HQ

    Celebrations have erupted among mission scientists and the hundreds of assembled journalists and visitors - including relatives of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto, and James Christy who discovered its moon Charon.

  7. Packing them inpublished at 01:52

    Our science editor David Shukman is on the scene...

  8. Quite a contrast!published at 01:44

    This is the view a few moments ago in the mission control room.

    Mission control room awaiting "phone home"Image source, NASA

    Bustling with excited scientists and engineers!

    Remember what it looked like when New Horizons actually soared past Pluto 13 hours ago? 

  9. Last of the nine, or the first of the Kuiper Belt?published at 01:30 British Summer Time 15 July 2015

    Many people are keen to use today's history-making flyby as an excuse to welcome Pluto back onto the list of our Solar System's nine "official" planets.

    This image, and others like it, have had thousands of retweets.

    Whether or not Pluto's status is still official - it's inspiring to think that today we've added a significant chunk of knowledge to our understanding of the Solar System.

    Read more about the planet-or-not-a-planet controversy here:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33462184

  10. Relive the countdownpublished at 01:25

    While we are waiting for the Nasa briefing to start at 01:30 BST (you'll be able to watch it right here on this page), why not relive the excitement of today's countdown?

    This was the moment of New Horizons' closest approach - which it made in radio silence. 

    If New Horizons stays silent, these celebrations may have been premature! But all the mission scientists sound very confident that they will get a "phone home" signal in about half an hour's time.

  11. Precision puttingpublished at 00:52 British Summer Time 15 July 2015

    Pete Marshall got in touch with another suggested analogy relating to today's historic flyby (see our question three posts ago):

  12. 'We all have our fingers and toes crossed'published at 00:52

    Our science correspondent Jonathan Amos has been speaking to John Grunsfeld, Nasa's head of science.

    He was full of excitement and pride, but said the team will be "a little bit concerned" until they hear from New Horizons tonight.

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    In just 50 years, we've gone from the first flyby of Mars with Mariner 4 to the first flyby of Pluto. 50 years! That's pretty short when you consider that making the first map of the Earth and understanding its continents took hundreds of years.

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    In 500 years from now in Encyclopaedia Galactica, if such a thing exists, I think historians will look back at this time and say that it truly was the golden era, or the classical age, of space exploration.

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    We still wonder whether New Horizons survived the encounter. We all have our fingers and toes crossed. But every indication is that it should have, and we'll know tonight. It's not exactly the 'seven minutes of terror' (a reference to landing probes on Mars), but we are all a little bit concerned until we actually get the signal from the spacecraft. Lots of things can go wrong.

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    But as to the question about whether this is going to inspire - I think we've answered that. Just the mission to Pluto was intriguing, and I think we're already inspiring millions and millions of people around the world with the little probe that could."

    John Grunsfeld, Associate administrator for science at Nasa

    When Jonathan sent us these quotes he summed it up as follows:

    "We wait for a great day to become a perfect one."

  13. Broken-hearted?published at 23:58

    Prof Chris Lintott, astrophysicist and presenter of BBC's The Sky at Night, has filed this video round-up of today's events.

    "It's been a busy one," he says, demonstrating remarkable powers of understatement.

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  14. Choose your analogypublished at 23:52 British Summer Time 14 July 2015

    BBC Two's Newsnight just compared New Horizons' buzzing of Pluto today (a separation of 12,472km at last estimate) to the distance from London to Jakarta. 

    That's not bad: 11,715km. 

    What's your best analogy? You can tweet Jonathan, external or Paul, external with suggestions.

    We like saying the craft got within one Earth diameter (about 12,735km on average) - which, apparently, is also about half the total length of the Great Wall of China !

    Not bad after travelling five billion km...

  15. Just over two hours to go...published at 23:40

    Nasa's now world-famous probe has (hopefully) already sent its "phone home" message! That much-anticipated signal should be received at approximately 01:53 BST.

    There will be a live broadcast from mission control starting at 01:30 BST.

    Meanwhile - this graphic from the official New Horizons Twitter account is a nice reminder of how far away the little spacecraft is, and the vast territory that it is headed into...

  16. Hawking's congratulationspublished at 23:32

    In a recorded message to the New Horizons team, Cambridge University astrophysicist Prof Stephen Hawking congratulated them on their "pioneering mission"....

    Quote Message

    Billions of miles from Earth, this little robotic spacecraft will show us the first glimpse of mysterious Pluto

    He noted that it was 50 years since Mariner 4, the first successful mission to Mars, sent back 21 images of Earth's neighbour. Now New Horizons will uncover new details of a much more distant red planet.

    Quote Message

    We explore because we are human and we want to know

    You can see the video message in its entirety here:

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  17. Planetary love affairpublished at 23:22 British Summer Time 14 July 2015

    A lot of messages of affection for Pluto have been shared on social media today, in response to the "heart" it flashed at Earth.

    This one has been shared so widely it's hard to know where it started...

    Pluto picture with "Thanks for visiting" messageImage source, Twitter

    Meanwhile US astronaut Scott Kelly, who is four months into a year in space, sent this one from the International Space Station!

  18. Switch on the tellypublished at 23:08

    If you're in the UK, tune into Newsnight now on BBC Two!

    Our science correspondent Rebecca Morelle is about to give a live update from Baltimore...

    And if you missed Rebecca's short film all about Pluto on Newsnight yesterday, you can find it in the "Key Video" tab above...

  19. Send us your viewspublished at 22:57 British Summer Time 14 July 2015

    Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk

    Adham Fisher, Leicester:

    I don't think this mission can be called a "visit" to Pluto, as some have termed it. The craft has not landed on the planet or even broken its atmosphere. The Mars Rover mission, however, has definitely been a "visit". 

    This "fly-by" is just that, or a sightseeing tour, but an extremely ground breaking one nevertheless, which will show things we have never seen before.

    How splendid and fitting that the ashes of Pluto's discoverer were sent with New Horizons. I don't know if that has been done before, but might he now be the furthest human away from Earth?

    As far as we know, Adham, yes - that portion of Tombaugh's ashes are the farthest-flung human remains, by quite some distance!

  20. Spin, Pluto, spinpublished at 22:37 British Summer Time 14 July 2015

    While we're waiting for New Horizons to spin around and ping a message home - look at Pluto itself spinning! 

    Amateur space imager  Björn Jónsson, external created this animation showing Pluto rotating in all its new high-resolution glory.

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    It is built up from images taken during New Horizons' approach, right up to - and including - the full-frame shot snapped just before the flyby and released today.