Today is Pluto's big day, and this is Pluto's big week. No one should take that from the New Horizons craft, an intrepid explorer that's giving us our first up-close meeting with the King of the Kuiper Belt. (Take that, Eris!) We now know how big Pluto is and what its polar caps look like, and we have hints that it has snow, past (and maybe present) tectonic activity, and more.

But as we wait for New Horizons to send back word that it's cleared the Pluto system, and to send back new images tomorrow, let's remember that NASA has some active and awesome missions spread around the solar system. After all, look who's phoning home as we speak:

I'm going to organize these from least to most distant. And for the sake of time, let's get at least out of low-Earth orbit. (You can see the active Earth-orbiting NASA satellites at this JPL page.)

The Moon

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been sending back gorgeous images and powerful scientific information about the Moon since 2009, telling us a lot about our nearest neighbor. It's even returned some images of the Apollo 11 landing spot. It discovered an abundance of hydrogen, water ice on the south pole, and in May was zipping just 12 miles above the surface of the moon, stealing a peek at craters at the pole.

Mars

Since 2004, the Mars Opportunity rover has been returning incredible data about the red planet to Earth. It was joined in 2012 by the Mars Curiosity rover.

Up above the planet's surface there's the MAVEN mission that arrived last year and is studying the atmosphere of Mars for evidence of past volatiles. It will do some deep dives toward the surface to gather information.

Opportunity gets support from the Odyssey orbiter, which has been in orbit since 2001. It currently serves as a communications hub, though it did reconnaissance work for a Curiosity landing site and gathering data on mineral composition and radiation interaction on Mars. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived in 2006 and continues to look for past evidence of water on Mars. (It's worth noting that the European Space Agency and the Indian Space Research Organisation both have active orbiters at Mars.)

Asteroid Belt

After completing an in-depth study of Vesta, the Dawn spacecraft began its journey toward Ceres in 2012, arriving this year. The spacecraft returned intriguing images and data from Vesta, including evidence of past water flows.

At the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest thing in the Asteroid Belt, Dawn is finding intriguing features including bright spots on the surface that are either ice or salts. The craft is currently descending to lower and lower orbits, though it recently had a slight computer glitch that put it in safe mode. Science has been temporarily suspended while they diagnose the problem.

Saturn

All those beautiful pictures of Saturn and its moons that you've seen over the past decade-plus? They came from the Cassini spacecraft that has been exploring the Saturn system since 2004, and just keeps on giving us amazing photos and data. It found evidence of an ocean on Enceladus, continues to investigate the bizarre but oddly familiar moon of Titan, and just continues to be an all-around MVP for NASA. However, next year the probe will begin winding down its mission. It will crash into Saturn in 2017 so as not to contaminate Titan or Enceladus, should any life exist in either place.

Outer Solar System

Voyager 1 and 2 just keep going. Launched in 1977, the crafts explored the outer solar system before heading to interstellar space. Voyager 1 departed its encounter with Saturn in 1980, and finally crossed the Heliopause in 2013, marking the beginning of interstellar space.

After departing Neptune's system in 1989, Voyager 2 is now two-thirds of the way through the heliosphere, also bound for interstellar space. Its plasma instruments are still working, meaning that when it passes through, it will gather even more impressive data. Both crafts will likely go dark in the mid 2020s.

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