flyby

Well get the hi-res images once new horizons actually does its flyby and once the data is downloaded.

Hm, maybe it was 40 gigabits = 5 gigabytes of data that it gathered from the flyby?

Note also that after New Horizons finishes downloading the data from its flyby in November 2016, it won't have a lot to say unless and until its Kuiper belt object flyby.

It's a flyby mission whose primary data collection occupied only a couple of days.

Other reasons for doing a flyby, I suspect, is that we get to see more stuff this way.

So it will just do a very short flyby, then spend the next year or two sending the data back to Earth.

Also, anyone know why the spacecraft has to do a flyby, as opposed to, say, going into orbit around Pluto?

We just had our first flyby of Pluto (not an orbiter).

I read about how much higher resolution the images would be as the probe reached its closest point in the flyby.

No decision has been taken about that flyby yet.

That's the delay in getting a single batch of images back during the approach phase, not how long it'll take to get all of the images from the flyby back.

I'd have preferred them not to chant U-S-A and wave flags during the flyby, because that short moment is at its peak when the flyby is happening and everyone around the world share the same curiosity and happiness by watching the stream live, but if that's the way they want to celebrate, that's the way they're gonna celebrate.

Assuming we could somehow accelerate a "New New Horizons" probe to near light speed, that's a disappointingly long time to wait for a flyby.