LONDON: In 2006 the Pittsburgh Steelers were the Super Bowl champions, the top movies included Casino Royale, Cars and the movie 300. Also there was the launch of the New Horizons space craft on a 10 year mission to the outer rim of our solar system.
New Horizons rode to space powered by an Atlas 5 booster rocket system plus a main stage munition making it the fastest deep probe launched by NASA.
New Horizon’s space cruising speed is over 38,000 miles per hour, more than 900 hundred thousand miles per day.
Why the hurry? Pluto is more than three billion miles from earth. It will take the space probe 9 and a half years to reach Pluto.
Dr. Cran Lucas of the Shreveport-Bossier Astronomical Society says “Pluto has always been fascinating.
When it was discovered it was a new planet. Now it turns out it’s a lot smaller than people thought it was. But it’s still an object of interest and there are objects farther out that are very similar to it.”
All the more reason to send a camera and take an eagle eye look.
Scientists suspicion that Pluto may have Saturn like rings, gaseous geysers and rift valleys.
The planet surface area is about the size of South America which has never been seen with clarity.
By using long range reconnaissance imaging NASA will map out the surface. “Pluto is a very interesting object because a it’s part of what’s known as the Kuiper belt.
It’s leftover debris and dwarf planets leftover from the formation of the solar system. So it’s a unique object to study geologically.” says Lucas New Horizons’ fly by and up close mapping is expected to happen in early July.
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