(Im)Patiently Waiting

Well, New Horizons had it’s closest encounter with Pluto.  It happened a couple of hours ago.  All of the probes systems were tied up with it’s observations, so there was no communication with Earth during the flyby.  That, plus the 4-5 hours it takes for messages to cross the 3 billion or so miles to Earth, means we won’t know for sure that everything worked until late this evening.  I read somewhere that we don’t expect to receive any data until 8-9 O’Clock tonight.  We know the spacecraft made it to Pluto.  We won’t know for a while yet if it successfully completed it’s objectives.  There is always a chance some thing could have gone wrong.  Fingers crossed that everything went fine.  For now, I will just wait impatiently for some news.