On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft will fly by Pluto after nearly a decade of travel. The space mission is expected to bring new findings about the mysterious dwarf planet’s atmosphere and its five moons.
July 14 New Horizons Spacecraft will visit former planet Pluto
Save the date, space enthusiasts as NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft flies by Pluto on July 14, 2015. The spacecraft will be making history after journeying 3.6 billion miles over the past 9 years. In January 2006, the spacecraft became the first launched in hopes of reaching the former planet. In two weeks, the dwarf planet will finally have a visitor as New Horizons hovers over 7,800 miles above Pluto’s icy surface around 7:49 a.m.
Though New Horizons will arrive on July 14, we won’t be privy to the first pictures of Pluto for a few days and it may even take months for all the data gathered to be compiled. However, what’s a couple of extra days when we’ve been waiting for nearly a decade for this moment?
The space mission will also reveal the first glimpses of Charon, one of Pluto’s moons. After flying by Pluto, the spacecraft will travel along to explore the Kuiper belt, the solar system that Pluto and other dwarf planets call home.
Remember When Pluto Was a Planet? New Horizons Does!
When New Horizons blasted off on 19 January 2006, it became the fastest space mission ever launched. The main target was to reach our farthest planet Pluto, which Clyde Tombaugh discovered in February 1930. However, only seven months after the spacecraft launched, its mission would be changed as Pluto was officially demoted from planet to dwarf planet.
The demotion came after heated debate in the astronomical community drew proposals regarding Pluto’s inclusion or exclusion as a planet. The proposals used the International Astronomical Union’s definition of a planet to rule out our beloved Pluto.
Though Pluto meets the first and second criterion of being a planet–it is a celestial body orbiting the Sun with a sufficient enough mass to assume a round shape–because of the third criterion, which specifies that the planet must clear the area around its orbit.
Alan Stern, leader of the New Horizons mission, was quoted as saying he was embarrassed that less than five percent of astronomers cast a vote in the debate. Regardless of the vote, Stern could take comfort in the fact that New Horizons had already launched and would not be called back.
What will the New Horizons Spacecraft Reveal about Pluto?
Scientists and researchers involved in the New Horizons mission aren’t completely positive about what the space probe will find on Pluto. However, plenty of possibilities are in orbit in the astronomical community as to what that spacecraft will reveal besides the icy terrain. Some theories include lakes of liquid neon, an equatorial mountain range, and massive cryogeysers.
With all the speculation, everyone is eagerly awaiting July 14 for whatever images and secrets the New Horizons mission may divulge about Pluto, which is still our favorite (dwarf) planet.
For more information on this exciting event in space exploration history, check out this bit from Exceed Internet:
Via: http://www.exceedinternet.org/pluto-new-horizons-satellite
