Photos: Delta 4-Heavy launch gallery

A long-awaited radio signal from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft landed on planet Earth late Tuesday, confirming the faraway space probe performed as expected during a one-shot flyby of Pluto at the solar system’s outer frontier.

The splashdown of Orion in the Pacific Ocean concludes the EFT-1 shakedown cruise for NASA’s new space capsule.

New results from NASA’s New Horizons mission, which zipped about 7,700 miles from faraway Pluto on Tuesday, show puzzling icy landforms covered in frozen carbon monoxide and mysterious dark smudges, which may be evidence for plumes erupting from Pluto’s warmer interior, scientists said Friday.