The Voyager Mission Experience

Alan Stern, principal investigator for the New Horizon mission, reveals his biggest surprise so far as the probe closes in on Pluto.

On the final stretch of a speedy nine-year trek through the solar system, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will be awakened from hibernation Dec. 6 for an encounter with Pluto, a mysterious world that has captured imaginations and will soon be revealed in reality.

The science team of NASA’s New Horizons mission has produced this global map of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, from the data received so far from the 14 July flyby.