New Horizons Takes Off for Pluto — First Mission Aimed at a Planet Since 1977

THE LAUNCH

Third day’s charm at Cape Canaveral

Picture-perfect: After two days of delays, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft executed a flawless liftoff Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a nine-year journey to Pluto. The craft, the first American probe to visit a new planet since 1977, launched at 1 p.m. CST.

Built for speed: New Horizons is the fastest craft ever built by the space agency, designed to reach a top speed of 47,000 mph next year by using Jupiter’s gravity to slingshot itself into the outer solar system.

Kuiper Belt: Plumbing the mysteries of Pluto will help scientists understand why the planets formed where they did. New Horizons also will give researchers a close-up look at the Kuiper Belt, a huge region of icy planetoids beyond Neptune.

PLUTO FACTS

Planet or asteroid?

Pluto is an oddball icy dwarf unlike the rocky planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars and the gaseous planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. There are some scientists who think Pluto would be better classified as a large asteroid or comet rather than as a planet.

In Roman mythology, Pluto is the god of the underworld. The planet received this name (after many other suggestions) perhaps because it’s so far from the sun that it is in perpetual darkness and perhaps because “PL” are the initials of Percival Lowell.

Lowell was an American astronomer who founded the Lowell Observatory in Arizona (1894). His successors later discovered Pluto in 1930.

Pluto is the only planet that has not been visited by a spacecraft.

Pluto’s orbit is highly eccentric. At times it is closer to the Sun than Neptune. Pluto rotates in the opposite direction from most of the other planets.

REACTION

All systems go

Omar Baez, NASA launch director: “The spacecraft is where it needs to be, going at the right speed, in the right direction.”

Sources: Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, www.nineplanets.org.

——————–

Space trash danger

It’s out there, maybe to stay

More than 9,000 pieces of space debris are orbiting the Earth, a hazard that can only be expected to get worse. And currently there’s no workable way to clean up the mess.

Details

The pieces of space junk measuring 4 inches or more total some 5,500 tons, according to a report in today’s issue of the journal Science.

Even if space launches were halted now – which will not happen – the collection of debris would continue growing as items already in orbit collide and break into more pieces.

“On the other hand, we are not claiming the sky is falling,” said scientist J-C. Liou. “We just need to understand what the risks are.”

Much of the debris results from explosions of old satellites.

– Associated Press

——————–