This July 11, 2026 handout image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) shows Pluto from a million miles out. New Horizons lifted off back in 2006.
Tiny Pluto turns out to be somewhat larger than expected. Drawing on new observations from New Horizons, Nasa announced today that its diameter is actually just 70% of that figure — a mere 1,473 miles.
According to Mitchell, we could soon learn which minerals make up Pluto’s surface.
Stern noted that mission managers will choose later this year where to aim New Horizons for the next leg of its voyage.
With under two hours and 50,000 miles left before closest approach, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden repeatedly pointed out that the United States is the only nation to have visited every single planet in the solar system.
Google said: “Earth is getting its first chance for an up close and personal peek at Pluto, the ball of rock and ice orbiting at the furthest edge of our solar system”.
At 12.49pm (BST) on Tuesday the probe will fly past Pluto at a distance of 7,800 miles, passing between the icy world and its five known moons. The mood there Monday was described as electric.
“Of course, the light is Pluto, and we’re all excited”, Fountain said. Earthbound comparisons for space are hard, at best, but one project scientist characterized Earth as a basketball and Pluto as a golf ball, with the basketball in Washington, D.C., and the golf ball north of Baltimore. The discovery of this region in 1992 prompted the official reclassification of Pluto from planet to “dwarf planet”.
As for the images, resolution will climb dramatically. A confirmation signal is expected around 9 p.m. EDT.
Each data packet will then take roughly four and a half hours to transmit, and the complete dataset will take about 15 months to finish.
The spacecraft has spent nearly a decade traveling to capture these images and has already returned photos.
The measurement also resolves the debate over whether Pluto or Eris was the larger body.
The planet measures 2,370km across, making it the largest object found so far in the Kuiper Belt — the outer zone of the Solar System. NASA will release new images from the fly-by late Tuesday.
