Posted on 12/02/2014 2:06:45 PM PST by Red Badger
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is set to awake on Dec. 6 from the last of its 18 hibernation periods and prepare for its initial approach towards Pluto, which will take place on Jan. 15. The spacecraft is scheduled to come as close as 6,200 miles from the surface of Pluto on July 14, 2015 -- the closest any man-made object has come to the dwarf planet. The mission marks the first visit outside Neptune's orbit to the Kuiper Belt, which consists of Pluto and thousands of objects that have not yet been identified, according to Spaceflight Now, a space news website.
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New Horizons is currently 2.9 billion miles from earth and was launched in January 2006 atop an Atlas V rocket. Pluto at the time was still considered a planet, with scientists later that year voting to demote its status to that of a dwarf planet.
The spacecraft has over the last nine years frequently gone into hibernation for various amounts of time ranging from 36 to 202 days, all of which adds up to five years in total, to help conserve power and allow scientists time to make plans for its exploration in space. It transmits a beep once a week to alert scientists that it is still functioning properly. Once awakened on Dec. 6, New Horizons will transmit radio signals that will reach the Mission's control center, located at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, in about four hours at 9 p.m. eastern time.
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Scientists are hoping that NASA will continue to fund and extend the mission to allow for further exploration.
"The hope is that it will encounter one other Kuiper Belt object," Buckley told ABC News.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
PHOTO: Members of the media garbed in protective uniforms view NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on Nov. 4, 2005 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida
PHOTO: An artist's concept shows the New Horizons's Spacecraft approaching Pluto.
PHOTO: A Hubble Space Telescope image released by NASA in 2006 shows Pluto and three of it's five moons.
A drawing shows the New Horizons spacecraft approaching Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, in July 2015. NASA
Space Ping!..............
Will I dream??????
Let’s celebrate by making Pluto a planet again.
Of what?.............
Somebody get the coffee started.
Once a planet always a planet..............
You mean Rip Van Winkle?............
I’m forever amazed at what we are capable of accomplishing.......
Yes, you are correct ... Just lookin’ for Santa Claws!
It’s just the start.
As soon as we figure out how to get past that ‘Speed of Light’ thingy..............
Grandma is in a coma at the North Pole. Her head is in Mississippi.
Yup, NASA's muslim outreach really paid off...</sarc>
It is floating across the ceiling ....
So, is Pluto a planet or not?
Pluto was a planet when the mission began.
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