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'This is the most science fiction-looking world you’ll ever see’: New Horizons' mission lead reveals how Pluto could change our view of the solar system

New Horizons will make its closest to Pluto at 7:49 a.m. EDT tomorrow
Principal investigator, Alan Stern, has spent 15 years working on mission
Pluto has taught us 'that our view of the solar system is wrong', said Stern
Dwarf planet is thought to be a relic left from formation of the solar system
First close-up images will be sent back to Earth on Wednesday morning

By Ellie Zolfagharifard For Dailymail.com

Published: 14:12 EST, 13 July 2015 | Updated: 07:04 EST, 14 July 2015

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Pluto is almost ready for its close up.

After nine and a half years and three billion miles, the New Horizons spacecraft is about to lift the veil on the icy world.

It promises to be the biggest planetary debut in a quarter-century. The curtain hasn't been pulled back like this since the Voyager 2 flew past Neptune in 1989.

For principal investigator, Alan Stern, this is the culmination of 15 years of hard work and endless campaigns to launch missions to the dwarf planet.

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New Horizons Principal investigator, Alan Stern (left) told DailyMail.com that the close-up images of Pluto will be unlike anything we've ever seen. 'Pluto hasn't let us down. It is a scientific wonderland,' he said

'The adrenaline is intense at the moment,' Stern told DailyMail.com. '[I'm] literally sleeping four hours a night and feeling great.'

Pluto is the best-known object in the Kuiper Belt, a region of space that holds mysterious relics of our the solar system's early life.

Astronomers hope the dwarf planet will hold the answers to many questions about how planets like Earth once formed.

'Pluto hasn't let us down. It is a scientific wonderland,' said Stern, adding it could change our view of the solar system entirely.

'I mean, just look at the images. It's unlike anything. This is the most science fiction-looking world you'll ever see.'

Pluto is almost ready for its close up. After nine and a half years and three billion miles, the New Horizons spacecraft is about to lift the veil on the icy world. Pictured are its key instruments

The science team at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland reacted with delight as features began to emerge in the images being sent back by New Horizons. They have been told to relish the once in a lifetime mission

Recently, images of Pluto, its largest moon Charon, and tinier moons Styx, Nix, Hydra and Kerberos, revealed the six objects in a dance unlike anything in our solar system.

'Its moons are spectacular,' said Stern. 'It's got more moons than the entire inner solar system.

NASA APP LETS YOU TRACK NEW HORIZONS IN REAL-TIME

Nasa has created an app that lets you ride onboard the New Horizons on your Mac or PC.

You can use a “live” mode to see what New Horizons is doing right now, or preview the flyby of the Pluto System.

The spacecraft will be busiest during the time of closest approach between today and 15th where you will see the spacecraft turn from target to target as it flies past Pluto at over 30,000 miles per hour.

Click here to download the app.

'It is the first double planet we've ever visited with a complex atmosphere, and now we can see a very complex surface history.'

'And we haven't even begun that surface study. We haven't even begun to study the interior of the planet.'

The size of a baby grand piano, New Horizons will come closest to Pluto tomorrow morning — at 7:49 a.m. EDT.

That's when New Horizons is predicted to pass within 7,767 miles (12,500 km) of the dwarf planet at 30,800 mph (49,600 kph).

Fourteen minutes later, the spacecraft will zoom within 17,931 miles of Charon, Pluto's jumbo moon.

From New Horizon's position more than 3 billion miles (4.88 billion km) from Earth, radio signals, travelling at the speed of light, take nearly four and a half hours to reach the ground.

Mission control won't be absolutely certain of success until tomorrow night, 13 hours following New Horizons' closest approach, when it 'phones home.'

Pluto probe on course for historic fly-by after nine year journey

'I will be on the edge of my seat,' Stern said. 'There is a small chance New Horizons will be lost during a debris strike.'

'Experts say the chance this will happen is 1 in 10,000 or less. But until we hear back from it we won't know. We are flying into the unknown.'

Scientists involved want to take a good look at Pluto and Charon, and get a handle on their surfaces and chemical composition.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN DURING NEW HORIZON'S HISTORIC FLYBY TOMORROW

New Horizons is expected to come as close as 7,800 miles (12,500 km) from Pluto at 7:49 a.m. EDT/1149 GMT on Tuesday.

It will become the first probe to visit distant Pluto, capping a reconnaissance of the solar system that began more than 50 years ago.

On July 14, New Horizons will remain radio silent for much of the day so that it can concentrate on gathering data.

Timing is crucial. New Horizons will have just 30 minutes to conduct the most important part of the mission, including photographing Pluto and Charon. Here is a brief timeline:

7.49am EDT: New Horizons makes it closes approach at 7,800 miles (12,500 km)

8:04am: The probe will makes its closest approach to Charon at 17,960 miles (28,900 km)

8:51am: New Horizons will pass through Pluto's shadow, allowing it to probe the dwarf planet's atmosphere

10.18am: It passes through Charon's shadow, allowing it to search for an atmosphere

8.53 pm: Mission team on Earth should receive a preprogrammed 'phone home' signal, which, if all went well, will indicate the spacecraft survived

They also plan to measure the temperature and pressure in Pluto's nitrogen-rich atmosphere and determine how much gas is escaping into space.

The mission team expect to see craters and possible volcanic remnants. A liquid ocean and a rocky core may also lie beneath the icy shell.

After analysing Pluto and Charon, New Horizons will continue to shoot deeper into the Kuiper Belt for a possible second mission to a Pluto cousin.

It will be Wednesday before the closest of Pluto's close-ups are available for release.

And it will be well into next year — October 2016 — before all the anticipated data are transmitted to Earth.

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Tantalising signs of geology on Pluto are revealed in this image from New Horizons taken from 3.3 million miles (5.4 million km) away. Scroll left to see an annotated version of the image

'You have to really be into delayed gratification if you want to be on this mission,' Stern said.

Nasa launched a fleet of initial reconnaissance missions between 1960 and 1977 to every planet in the solar system except Pluto.

But after the 1992 discovery that the solar system had a heavily populated 'backyard' beyond Neptune, a region known as the Kuiper Belt, a band of scientists won their long crusade to send a probe to Pluto.

Pluto and its icy Kuiper Belt are believed to be relics left over from the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

'Back in the early 2000s, scientists recognised the sweeping changes of our understanding of the geography and population of our solar system because of the Kuiper Belt,' Stern explained.

'I can't tell what's around the corner, no one can…but [tomorrow], I think the entire team will feel like they've done something a little larger than life, something lasting beyond themselves' said Alan Stern (right)

'Simply the discovery that small planets are common was Earth-shattering in its importance.

'So Earth-shattering that scientists couldn't cope with it. They said they aren't going to call them planets.'

'Once our technology allowed us to probe farther, and we found other objects like Pluto out there, we literally learned that our entire view of the solar system is wrong.'

The most recent image relayed from New Horizons and released on Saturday shows large, evenly spaced dark spots on the side of the Pluto that permanently faces its primary moon Charon.

The spots are related to a dark belt that circles Pluto's equatorial region.

A doughnut shaped ring, which may be an impact crater and dark linear features that may be cliffs have become clear in the latest batch of images of Pluto to be released to the public. Taken from more than one million miles from the dwarf planet, the images above show Pluto in increasing detail

'We're seeing these crazy black-and-white patterns. We have no idea what those mean,' said New Horizons scientist John Spencer.

'I'm very excited about these broad dark region we call spots,' added Stern.

'I'm more excited about the region to the north of those equatorial spots that shows a transition between the polar cap and the spotted equatorial belt, because it appears there is some combination of geology and transport taking place.

'We're going to see a lot more as we get closer'

The sneak peeks of Pluto in recent weeks are getting 'juicier and juicier,' says Johns Hopkins project scientist Hal Weaver. 'The science team is just drooling over these pictures.'

Another image released last week shows a copper-coloured Pluto bearing, a large, bright spot in the shape of a heart.

Scientists expect image resolution to improve dramatically by Tuesday. The 7,767-mile span at closest approach is about the distance between Seattle and Sydney.

New Horizons (artist's impression pictured) is due to give scientists a close up look at the surface of Pluto and its complex patterns when it flies past the planet at just 7,750 miles (12,472km) early on Tuesday morning

For Stern, a successful flyby tomorrow will be as much a personal victory as a professional one.

'There hasn't been a day I haven't worked on New Horizons,' he said. We've been together so long.

'We do think of it as something like a family-member. We get it cake every anniversary of launch like a birthday.'

'The atmosphere in the room is just electric. It's thrilling to be anywhere in the missions operations.

'Everywhere you go, huge smiles, lots of energy, people working all hours of the night and just loving it…this really is the end of a new beginning.'

NASA's new horizon's mission will reach Pluto by July 2015