The spacecraft called “New Horizons” that launched from Earth in 2006
finally reached Pluto This summer—in July of 2015! Traveling more than 3
billion miles to Pluto took 9 ½ years. The closest New Horizons will get to
Pluto is 7,750 miles. Its mission is to gather information—photos,
measurements, and more—about Pluto and send it back to Earth where scientists
can study it.
This is one of the first images New Horizons sent back to us. It is a
combination of several images taken when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles
away from Pluto. More pictures and other information will continue to be
transmitted back to earth over the next year.
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| Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute |
Some say that Pluto
may be home to a hazy atmosphere, nitrogen glaciers and possibly even an
underground ocean.
ABOUT New Horizons
ABOUT New Horizons
The New Horizons spacecraft weighs 1054 lbs. A Mini Cooper weighs
more than twice that!
Traveling at more than 750,000 miles per day, it is the fastest spacecraft to ever leave Earth’s orbit.
Scientists took advantage of the gravitational pull of other planets like
Jupiter to "slingshot" New Horizons forward on its journey.
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| Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute |
Information is sent to Earth through radio signals that take a long
time to travel to Earth. There are 7 instruments on board (see diagram above) that take pictures or measurements or even samples and send
information back to Earth.
ABOUT Pluto
First seen in 1930 through a telescope by an American named Clyde
Tombaugh, this icy cold dwarf planet is further away than the planets Neptune
and Uranus in our solar system and is located in the Kuiper belt.
Pluto has five known moons—Charon (discovered in 1978), Nix and Hydra
(2005), Styx (2011), and Kerberos (2012)—and takes 248 ½ years (Earth years)
to complete its orbit around our sun.
LEARN MORE:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/theres-flowing-ice-on-pluto-180956071/?no-ist
Vocabulary to look up: solar system, orbit, kuiper belt, dwarf planet, gravity assist or
slingshot
LEARN MORE:
Pluto.jhuapl.edu
Kidsastronomy.co
Planetsforkids.org
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/theres-flowing-ice-on-pluto-180956071/?no-ist
