NASA probe to make history with flyby of Pluto
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – NASA will make history Tuesday, when its probe will flyby Pluto. It will be the first spacecraft to do this, and it will make the United States the first nation to send a probe to every planet from Mercury to Pluto.
NASA’S probe, “The New Horizon”, has traveled more than nine years to get to the icy planet.
NASA said it will get within 6,000 miles of the surface, travelling about 31,000 miles per hour. It will be the closest view we’ve ever had of Pluto.
“We can’t predict what the discoveries will be and that’s the best part. This is real exploration and nothing’s been done, anything like this really since the 1980s and the voyager program. It’s been a long time,” Alan Stern, New Norizons Principal Investigator, NASA told CNN.
NASA is going to Pluto to help scientists better understand how Pluto and its moons fit in with the rest of the planets in our solar system.
NASA said the probe will gather pictures of the planet about eight to ten hours.
They said the probe won’t orbit Pluto and it won’t land. It will keep flying deeper into the Kuiper Belt. This is an area that scientists predict is filled with hundreds of small, icy objects.
NASA said its power source will allow it to fly for another 20 years
The images from the encounter will be released on July 15.
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