T-1 days until #PlutoFlyby

By this time tomorrow NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will be zooming past the Dwarf Plant Pluto capturing details of the planet from just 12,500 km (7,800 mi) away closer than any spacecraft has ever been.

New Horizons team members react to latest images from spacecraft
New Horizons team members react to latest images from spacecraft

The spacecraft is now deep in the encounter mode of operation, this means that if anything goes wrong it will automatically repair itself and continue operating.  Previously the vehicle, as it did last week, would have failed over to the backup computer, re-orient itself towards Earth and then wait for commands to be sent back.  However due to the limited time of the flyby valuable data would be lost if the computer couldn’t automatically recover.

Due to the distance from Earth it will take more than a year to send all the data that is capture back to Earth.  While the spacecraft will be more then 600m miles away from Pluto by the time all the data is returned to Earth new revelations about the Pluto system will still be discovered during that time.

Below are some of the latest images returned by the spacecraft

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