NASA counts down to nail-biter Pluto flyby

July 14, 2015 09:03

An unmanned NASA spacecraft is hurtling into the unknown, and will make a close shave past Pluto today, allowing scientists a close glimpse of the dwarf planet's surface for the first time.

But there were some jitters on Mondat as the $700 million spacecraft, called New Horizons, sped toward Pluto, the last undiscovered frontier in the solar system.

According to principal investigator Alan Stern, there is a one in 10,000 chance that the spacecraft could be lost in a collision with debris around Pluto, long considered the farthest planet from the sun until it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.

The closest approach is set for today at 7:49 am (5:19 PM), when the piano-sized spacecraft shaves by Pluto's surface at a speed of 30,800 miles (49,570 kilometers) per hour.

The first spacecraft to visit an unexplored planet since the NASA Voyager missions of the 1970s will be busy snapping pictures and collecting data, and will phone home later.

New Horizons will send a signal to Earth at 4:20 pm (1:50 AM IST on Wednesday). It will take nearly five hours to reach scientists.

That means NASA won't announce until about 13 hours after the flyby, at 9:02 pm (6:32 AM IST Wednesday), whether or not the

spacecraft survived the high-speed encounter.

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