After 9 year journey, NASA's New Horizons to fly by Pluto Tuesday

After a nine year journey, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly by Pluto this week.

There are several Plutopalooza parties across Central Florida to celebrate New Horizon’s historic flyby of Pluto.

The spacecraft launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in 2006.

Now, nine years later and three billion miles, New Horizons on Tuesday will get closer to Pluto than we’ve ever been before.

Florida Tech Assistant Professor Darin Ragozzine is an expert on Pluto and will be helping the New Horizons team search for other celestial bodies after the Pluto flyby.

“A lot of things we don’t know that will tell us how Pluto formed, which tells us how that whole region of the solar system formed, so it’s an important piece to the puzzle of how our solar system formed,” said Ragozzine.

New Horizons continues to send back photos.

On Tuesday, the University of Florida Brevard County Extension office is offering hands on Pluto activities for kids and the Space Coast Office of Tourism is hosting their own Pluto-palooza party at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront hotel.

Plutopalooza

Tuesday July 14, 2015

University of Florida Brevard County Extension
3695 Lake Drive, Cocoa, FL
Come anytime from 1p.m. - 6 p.m.
Reservations Required.
For more information or to register, contact Vanessa at Vspero@ufl.edu or call 321-633-1702 ext 231. 

Space Coast Office of Tourism
Longboard Tiki Bar and Grill at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront
5 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Museum of Arts and Sciences
352 S. Nova Road
Daytona Beach, Florida 32114
10:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.