17 Jul 2015

Contact took place at 2.53 am (Italian time) from a distance of nearly 5 billion km. The probe made its historic rendezvous with Pluto on 14 July.

After a wait of nearly 22 hours, NASA's Deep Space Networkantenna near Madrid picked up the signal sent to Earth from the edge of the solar system by the New Horizons probe on 15 July at 2.53 am (Italian time), confirming to scientists that the probe is in excellent health.
New Horizons, the first probe to have ever come so close toPluto, broke the silence last night after a long pause while collecting scientific data and images of Pluto with its five moons.
The wait for the signal has kept the New Horizons team holding their breath as the probe, although equipped with protection, crossed an area with numerous rocky bodies at high speed.
The first images of Pluto and its moons are expected to arrive during the day. ASI President Roberto Battiston commented that "Pluto has had a difficult life since discovery, being initially classified as a planet, then a dwarf planet because it was too small, and its biggest moon, Charon, was only discovered later". "This mission could open new scenarios. After Pluto, there are only two more asteroid belts, one of which is a long way from the Sun. Now we are waiting to find out what it will tell us", he concluded.
New Horizons left Cape Canaveral on 19 January 2006, reaching the dwarf planet more than 9 years and 4.9 billion km later. The historic flyby only 12,500 km from Pluto’s surface took place on 14 July at 1.49 pm (Italian time), marking a new milestone in planetary exploration.
During the rendezvous the probe used its seven scientific instruments to take photographs of the dwarf planet and its moons, map the surface and analyse its chemical composition.
Pluto has some curious structures on its surface, including one heart shape and four large, dark marks placed an equal distance apart, which have attracted considerable attention.
The dwarf planet is also in a particularly interesting "border" area of the solar system known as the "Kuiper belt", filled with iced bodies of various sizes. Another important aspect of Pluto is that it forms a binary system together with its moon Charon, as the two bodies, although 19,636 km apart, rotate around a shared point of gravity.
The huge enthusiasm around the New Horizons mission has sparked public interest in the dwarf planet, which the latest data from the probe show is larger than previously thought: its diameter has been recalculated as approximately 2,370 km, making it the largest celestial body in the "Kuiper belt". Given these measurements, some social network users are calling for Pluto to be reinstated as the ninth planet in the solar system.