Posted on 06/23/2010 1:17:10 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
For spacecraft that zoom through the cosmos at thousands of miles per hour, calculating which one is traveling at the fastest speed is more complicated than simply clocking the first to cross the finish line.
When space agencies calculate and establish speed records, these numbers need to be defined and qualified, because there can be more than one frame of reference. In other words, the speed of a spacecraft can be calculated relative to the Earth, the sun, or some other body.
The record for the highest speed at which a spacecraft has launched and escaped from Earth's gravity is held by the New Horizons probe. This 1,054 pound (478 kg), piano-sized spacecraft, which launched in January 2006, sped away from the Earth at a blistering pace of 36,000 miles per hour (almost 58,000 kilometers per hour).
As the first mission to the distant Pluto, New Horizons is currently on a trajectory that will take it more than 3 billion miles away, toward the dwarf planet.
New Horizons' escape speed from Earth beat the previous record of 32,400 mph (about 52,000 km/h), set when Pioneer 10 set out for Jupiter in 1972.
After New Horizon encounters its primary science target, Pluto, and possibly a few of the asteroid-like objects in the Kuiper Belt that stretches beyond Pluto, the probe will leave our solar system. Here, it will join four other spacecraft, and could vie for yet another title: fastest interstellar spacecraft ever launched from Earth.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifeslittlemysteries.com ...
Both were beat by the Event Horizon, which folded space to travel instantaneously between two points.
That movie really gives a view of traveling a through a wormhole in a Sci-Fi thriller point of view. Good Movie.
OK. You’ve answered my question. :-) I just think describing something in terms of something like a piano is silly, given the variation in possible sizes this could represent. Didn’t Schroeder play a piano about a foot long? :-)
Grand piano. Check out my profile page for pics.
MD
While New Horizons is likely to remain the fastest launched spacecraft due to the Atlas 551 launch & relatively small payload, it should be noted that Juno’s orbital velocity around Jupiter will reach ~100,000 mph.
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