LAUREL, MARYLAND—
A U.S. spacecraft sailed past the tiny planet Pluto in the most distant reaches of the solar system on Tuesday, capping a journey of 3 billion miles (4.88 billion km) that began nine-and-a-half years ago.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft passed by the ice-and-rock planetoid and its entourage of five moons at 7:49 a.m. Eastern (1149 GMT). The event culminated an initiative to explore the solar system that the space agency embarked upon more than 50 years ago.
"It's truly a mark in human history," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, said from the mission control center at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside Baltimore.
New Horizons was expected to continue observing Pluto for several hours after it made its closest approach to the unexplored world, coming within 7,750 miles (12,472 km) of the sphere.