Since mankind first looked up and realized that there was so much more than just the earth, scientists and researchers have been eager to explore and study other planets, stars, and solar systems. As of Tuesday, July 14th at precisely 7:49:58 EST, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will reveal pictures like we’ve never seen.
Pluto’s Discovery
Pluto was officially discovered by Clyde Tombaugh on February 18th, 1930. It resides in the farthest cluster of objects in our solar system known as the Kuiper Belt. In these 85 years that we have known of Pluto, it has yet to make one whole revolution around the sun. Not only is Pluto’s journey around Sol incredibly massive, New Horizons’ trek to the now dwarf planet is just as impressively expansive. Measuring in at around 3 billion miles (~ 4.8 billion km), New Horizons has traveled such an incredibly long distance so that we can learn more about Pluto.
New Horizons’ Beginnings
The idea to send a craft out to take high quality pictures of Pluto is the brainchild of a group of researchers called Pluto Underground who first met in 1989. Inspired by the new pictures that had just come about of Pluto and its moon Charon due to the two being in a direct line of sight of Earth, the crew wanted more, and true to the ways of mankind, they began work on getting more. Their result was the creation of New Horizons.
This mission was launched 15 years ago, and in that time, much has changed, including Pluto’s demotion of planetary status, however one point that hasn’t changed is the excitement and desire for more detailed pictures of Pluto.
Exploring New Grounds
A mission from NASA to explore another planet in this fashion has not been undertaken since the Voyager II program in the 1980s. The pictures that New Horizons will take and send back to us will show us much more detailed images than we’ve ever had before. Now, instead of using speculation and their imaginations, researchers will have exact pictures of the dark spots and other various mysterious qualities of the planet.
On July 14th, New Horizons will be within 8,000 miles (~12,874 km) of the planet, and while this may seem far away, the camera it is equipped with will be able to capture details relative in size to the Manhattan docks.
