New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
Quote from a friend of mine on the team:<p>"After 9.5 years and 6 billion km, we made it to Pluto 72 seconds ahead of schedule."<p>Amazing!<p>The views of Pluto and Charon already reveal how incredibly fascinating this system is. The dichotomy of their surface colours will most definitely lead to further insight into formation processes in the Kuiper Belt.<p>Just such a shame that we can't land this time around. With the volume of discoveries generated by MESSENGER and Cassini, and the wealth of knowledge that New Horizons is going to generate, it's such a shame that my favourite planet, Uranus, is likely not going to be visited in my lifetime. I spent my PhD studying the mysterious outer ring system of Uranus, and I'm 100% positive that a close-up view of the entire system would blow our minds.<p>Somebody who solves/disrupts science communication deserves a Nobel Prize.<p><i>EDIT: Fixed typos</i>