NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is going to pass by Pluto on July 14. This opportunity would enable the unmanned spacecraft to send some detailed and high resolution images of the distant planet Pluto back to Earth.
Currently the image of the dwarf Pluto is quite blurred and of low resolution. So the much-awaited new high-resolution images would enable the public and the scientists to see the planet in all it's glory.
Pluto boasts of five moons and it is present in the historic Kuiper Belt. It is the ninth planet of the solar system. Nine years ago, it was named as a dwarf planet. Due to being the farthest planet from the sun, it is quite icy, according to Space Flight Insider.
Principal Investigator on the New Horizons mission - Alan Stern is very excited about the fact that the spacecraft would soon make exploration on the dwarf planet.
He said that, "It sounds like science fiction but it is not. Three months from today, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will make the first exploration of the Pluto system, the Kuiper Belt and the farthest shore of exploration ever reached by humankind," according to Japan Times.
New Horizons was launched in 2006 and currently it is moving at a speed of 1.6 million kilometers a day towards Pluto. It weighs more than 400 kgs and is going to travel around five billion kilometers in order to pass by Pluto two months from now.
The unmanned spacecraft works on a fuel of plutonium. It can not be powered by the solar energy as Pluto is farthest from the sun and the sunlight is very weak to adequately power up a spacecraft.