The world has been anxiously awaiting the finale of our first mission to Pluto. Ever. At 7:49 am EDT tomorrow morning, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will complete its nine-year, 4.6-billion-mile journey to the icy dwarf planet.
New Horizons has "three optical instruments, two plasma instruments, a dust sensor and a radio science receiver/radiometer," NASA said in a press release. They will probe the planet-wide geology, the composition and temperature of its surface, the pressure and temperature of its atmosphere, and the speed at which Pluto and its moons' atmospheres are escaping into space.