{"id":267388,"date":"2025-07-16T19:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T19:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/267388\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T19:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T19:40:11","slug":"this-6-25-gigabyte-photo-of-pluto-took-15-months-to-send","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/267388\/","title":{"rendered":"This 6.25 Gigabyte Photo of Pluto Took 15 Months to Send"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/a>This spectacular image of Pluto, taken on July 14, 2015, is the most accurate depiction of Pluto\u2019s color. | NASA\/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory\/Southwest Research Institute\/Alex Parker <\/p>\n

It has been a decade since NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft made its historic flyby of Pluto, delivering humanity\u2019s first close-up look at the solar system\u2019s distant dwarf planet. <\/p>\n

Launched on January 19, 2006, aboard an Atlas V rocket, New Horizons spent nine and a half years traversing nearly 9 billion miles through the solar system before reaching Pluto. The spacecraft made history on July 14, 2015, capturing high-resolution images<\/a> and data that transformed scientific understanding of the icy world.<\/p>\n

NASA has re-published the photo exactly 10 years later to celebrate the mission, which revealed a complex landscape, including Pluto\u2019s now-iconic heart-shaped plain, Sputnik Planitia, rich in nitrogen and methane ice. This feature, along with evidence of cryovolcanoes and a possible subsurface ocean, indicates that Pluto is a geologically active body, contrary to previous beliefs.<\/p>\n

The image was captured on New Horizons\u2019 Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). Refined calibration efforts have allowed scientists to produce a color rendering that closely resembles what the human eye would perceive. It took over 15 months to downlink the mission\u2019s full dataset of 6.25 gigabytes due to the spacecraft\u2019s distance \u2014 about 4.5 light-hours from Earth \u2014 and a transmission rate of just 1\u20132 kilobits per second.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>New Horizons captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Charon, Pluto\u2019s largest moon, just before closest approach on July 14, 2015. | NASA\/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory\/Southwest Research Institute <\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a lengthy period was necessary because the spacecraft was roughly 4.5 light-hours from Earth and it could only transmit 1\u20132 kilobits per second,\u201d NASA explains.<\/a><\/p>\n

The mission\u2019s success was hard-won. According to The Planetary Society, efforts to launch a spacecraft to Pluto faced nearly two decades of resistance due to cost concerns. In 2002, the White House attempted to cancel New Horizons during early development, but congressional intervention, spurred by public and scientific outcry, secured the mission\u2019s funding.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>In 2019, New Horizons snapped a picture of Arrkoth, the first clear photo of an object at the edge of the solar system. <\/p>\n

Following its Pluto flyby, New Horizons continued into the Kuiper Belt. In January 2019, it flew past Arrokoth<\/a>, the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft. This contact provided insight into the early solar system and helped secure a mission extension through at least 2029, when the spacecraft is expected to exit the Kuiper Belt.<\/p>\n

Threat to New Horizons <\/p>\n

But as NASA commemorates this milestone, the mission\u2019s future hangs in the balance due to proposed budget cuts that could prematurely end its extended operations.<\/p>\n

The White House\u2019s proposed 2026 budget includes a $6 billion cut to NASA\u2019s overall funding, slashing the agency\u2019s planetary science budget from $2.7 billion to $1.9 billion. If enacted, the cuts could terminate dozens of missions, including New Horizons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe New Horizons mission has a unique position in our solar system to answer important questions about our heliosphere and provide extraordinary opportunities for multidisciplinary science for NASA and the scientific community,\u201d Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate, said in 2023 per Gizmodo.<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This spectacular image of Pluto, taken on July 14, 2015, is the most accurate depiction of Pluto\u2019s color.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[874,101826,13376,49667,70,86964,24351,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-267388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-nasa","9":"tag-newhorizons","10":"tag-planet","11":"tag-pluto","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-solarsystem","14":"tag-spacecraft","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114864614734256762","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}