We're scientists on the NASA New Horizons team, which is at Pluto. Ask us anything about the mission & Pluto!

[u/NewHorizons_Pluto]

UPDATE: It's time for us to sign off for now. Thanks for all the great questions. Keep following along for updates from New Horizons over the coming hours, days and months. We will monitor and try to answer a few more questions later.

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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto. After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface -- making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.

For background, here's the NASA New Horizons website with the latest: http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

Answering your questions today are:

• Curt Niebur, NASA Program Scientist
• Jillian Redfern, Senior Research Analyst, New Horizons Science Operations
• Kelsi Singer, Post-Doc, New Horizons Science Team
• Amanda Zangari, Post-Doc, New Horizons Science Team
• Stuart Robbins, Research Scientist, New Horizons Science Team

Proof: https://twitter.com/NASASocial/status/620986926867288064

[u/NewHorizons_Pluto]

Yay! Happy to hear Pluto is inspiring the next generation :).
New Horizons does have the ability to detect new moons - we have been doing careful searches though all of the images and so far no luck. We will keep looking though, and even as we are departing we will look back at the Pluto system and that will be our best chance to see any faint diffuse material like rings. ~Kelsi

[u/Shagomir → u/NewHorizons_Pluto]

To add to this, it's possible we could be discovering things for decades. There's a pretty long tail on this sort of data.

For example, a new moon of Neptune was announced in 2013, but the observations that detected it were taken from 2004-2009, and it was then located on images from the Voyager flyby in 1989.

It's possible that the team has captured images of a new moon, but it looks like a background star or was missed. It's possible some sharp-eyed postgrad will find it in 20 years and get a PHD out of the deal.

I love science.

[u/Obi_Wan_Benobi → u/Shagomir]

I remember I was a little kid when Voyager did its flyby and I just assumed it would arrive at Pluto pretty soon afterwards because hey nine comes after eight, right?

Yeah.

So I've been waiting for this Pluto thing for quite some time. :)

[u/[deleted] → u/Shagomir]

Its far easier to miss a moon orbiting a gas giant that has dozens of moons already known than to miss a moon orbiting a small planet, but it is still possible.

[u/theincourup → u/NewHorizons_Pluto]

You know what would inspire me? Having our ninth planet back :/

[u/TravisPM → u/NewHorizons_Pluto]

Engage your long range scanners!