The long-awaited Pluto flyby is now fast-approaching as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is closing in on the final half million miles of a more than 3 billion-mile journey. It's a historic moment you won't want to miss, and NASA's Eyes on The Solar System app (virtually) takes you right to the action.
You can download the Eyes on the Solar System app free from NASA's website to monitor New Horizons' extremely speedy progress. The spacecraft is hurtling toward Pluto at more than 30,000 mph, zooming toward the greatest milestone of its nine-year journey.
"When we get a clear look at the surface of Pluto for the very first time, I promise, it will knock your socks off," Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., said in a statement earlier this month.
As you sit virtually perched alongside the spacecraft, you can monitor New Horizons' exact speed and count down the time and distance until its closest approach to Pluto. The app also helps you get acquainted with the various instruments aboard New Horizons, which are endearingly named RALPH, ALICE, REX, and LORRI.
If you get impatient while counting down until the Pluto flyby, you can explore a host of other interesting spots in the universe with Eyes on the Solar System. For those feeling adventurous, the app can take you 1,000 light years away to search for exoplanets that may be hospitable to life. Or if chasing Pluto has piqued your interest about our home planet, you can explore spectacular images of Earth taken by NASA satellites.
New Horizons will be the most active from July 13 through July 15, when it is closest to Pluto. But if all goes according to plan, that won't be the end for New Horizons. It's headed toward some intriguing objects in the Kuiper Belt that the Hubble Space Telescope uncovered.
