The New Horizons mission team celebrates successful flyby of Pluto in the moments after closest approach at 7:49 a.m. It was almost exactly one year ago on Jthat New Horizons conducted EarthвЂ™s first ever up close flyby and science reconnaissance of Pluto вЂ“ the most distant planet in our solar system and the last of the nine planets to be explored. Researchers say that 2014 MU69 is considered as one of the early building blocks of the solar system and as such will be invaluable to scientists studying the origin of our solar system how it evolved. The spacecraft will rendezvous with the ancient rock on New YearвЂ™s Day 2019. The New Horizons spacecraft will now continue on course in the Kuiper Belt towards an small object known as 2014 MU69, to carry out the most distant close encounter with a celestial object in human history. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

The image is centered on Ceres brightest spots at Occator crater. Thanks to everyone for following along & hopefully the best is yet to come.Дwarf planet Ceres is shown in this false-color renderings, which highlight differences in surface materials. вЂњOur extended mission into the #KuiperBelt has been approved. вЂњMission approved!вЂќ the researchers gleefully reported on the probes Facebook and Twitter social media pages. The biggest news is that NASA green lighted a mission extension for the New Horizons probe to fly deeper into the Kuiper Belt and decided to keep the Dawn probe at Ceres forever, rather than dispatching it to a record breaking third main belt asteroid.ДЄnd the exciting extension news comes just as the agencyвЂ™s Juno probe is about to ignite a do or die July 4 fireworks display to achieve orbit at Jupiter вЂ“ detailed here. In an вЂIndependence DayвЂ™ gift to a slew of US planetary research scientists, NASA has granted approval to nine ongoing missions to continue for another two years this holiday weekend. New Horizons trajectory and the orbits of Pluto and 2014 MU69.

Phew iss wallops