Humankind has achieved great things, and on July 14 it achieves another. On this day a NASA spacecraft called New Horizons flew by Pluto at 7:49 am ET (5:19 pm IST). New Horizons is the first spacecraft in history to ever visit the dwarf planet, and it has been a long time coming since New Horizons has been in space for 9 years.
NASA will stream live countdown of the event starting at 7: 30 am EST, followed by a briefing on the mission at 8:00 am to 9:00 am ET.
Watch NASA’s live coverage right here.
It is important to note that the countdown will not show live footage of the spacecraft moving by Pluto,as no telescope has been invented as yet that is strong enough to see the piano-siezed spacecraft in enough detail. Also the spacecraft is about 4.5 light hours away from Earth, so its coverage of the flyby will take at least 4.5 hours to reach us.
This also means that when New Horizons reaches the closest point it will be too busy to send a message to scientists that it has reached. The message will be sent later, at around 8:53 am ET.
Feature image source: Reuters