The New Horizons spacecraft, launched by NASA in 2006, spent Tuesday at 12,500 kilometers of Pluto thus achieving the closest approach to the dwarf planet.
After a journey of nine years for the Solar System, in which he traveled nearly five billion kilometers from Earth, the spacecraft collected information that scientists only have entirely up within 16 months.
The feat has been trend in social networking and published in major media in the world. Even Google celebrated the arrival at Pluto with a doodle on the dwarf planet replaces the second ‘O’ logo and New Horizons flies below. (See also: The man reached its closest approach to Pluto today)
This information will help you understand the purpose of this mission
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Launch
New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006 from Cape Canaveral (United States).
Nearly 10 years of travel
In February 2007 flew to Jupiter for gravity assist, allowing you to save three years of flight. For much of the eight years of travel between Jupiter and Pluto between 2007 and 2014, turns slowly in a state of hibernation, and sends signals once a week to confirm that is OK.
Speed
Travel to 50,000 kilometers per hour, which has made this the fastest spacecraft launched from Earth.
The approach
The spacecraft made its closest approach on Tuesday July 14 at 6:50 a. m. Colombian time, 12,500 kilometers from the surface of Pluto, a little more distance between Bogota and Wellington, capital of New Zealand. (See also: A near horizon: the arrival of New Horizons to Pluto)
Data Capture
A volume of information that was collected It takes 16 months to get fully back to Earth.
Objectives
it is expected to Pluto, which orbits at a distance of about 5,900 million kilometers from the sun, offer a more complete vision of a completely unexplored region of our solar system.
A short failure
In nearly 10 years of travel, the only fault was faced into ‘safe mode’ such as restarting a computador- 10 days ago.
Whither?
New Horizons will not stop to orbit Pluto. His path will continue and is expected to visit one or two Kuiper belt objects.
 Model New Horizons. Photo: AFP
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The ship
is equipped with seven instruments used to determine what makes up the atmosphere or how the Sun ejects particles interact with the atmosphere. They also serve as backup if other instruments fail.
Curiosities
It also carries a CD-ROM containing 434,000 names of people that responded to the request for “Send Your Name to Pluto”, some coins and a US stamp of 1991 that says “Pluto: unexplored”. and the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto 85 years ago
The ‘planet’ missing
Since 1989, when the Voyager 2 reached Neptune, no other spacecraft has seen a planet close for the first time.
Research
The probe will be responsible for mapping the surface and the temperature variation of Pluto and its moons Charon; characterize their compositions; search for new moons or rings around the dwarf planet and look for evidence of possible oceans.
Planet
The composition of this celestial body is 30 ice percent and 70 percent silica.
One day on Pluto is 153.3 hours and a year lasts 90,465 days.
The New Horizons spacecraft NASA yielded data hitherto unknown Pluto. There are 80 more across kilometers and 2,370 kilometers in diameter
The dwarf planet is so far is that even the telescope Hubble was able to obtain details of this celestial body discovered in 1930.
The hopes of finding life are few, since the surface temperature of the dwarf planet is -223 ° C.
The photos showed a dark part on the horizon and there is talk that it could be a nitrogen frozen ocean.
LIFESTYLE / SCIENCE
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