It's only with projects such as these you realise how big it all is, and this is just our backyard. Even at the speed of light (nearly as fast as a Suzuki GSXR1100) it takes six hours to get from there to here. The craft is consuming about 200 watts of power, and the transmitter is only 15 watts !!! (A fridge lamp !!) Maximum data rate of transmission is one kilobit per second.
And all the technology onboard is at least a dozen years old (a long time these days.)
The joy on the mission team's faces was clear to see. They're already planning another flyby of these distant bits and all of this is a bonus, because Pluto was the primary mission and that went well.
It's just nice for me to see this on the news instead of all the other bull
(excreted matter.) 