The journey to Pluto, the farthest world ever explored - Alan Stern
Check out Alan Stern's "Chasing New Horizons": https://shop.ed.ted.com/collections/ted-ed-book-recommendations/products/chasing-new-horizons View full ...
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On July 4, 2015, a NASA spacecraft called New Horizons was 5 billion kilometers away from Earth. It was only 10 days away from Pluto, after flying for 9.5 years, when it suddenly dropped out of contact. But let’s back up a little. As of 1989, mankind had successfully sent craft to every known planet in the solar system except one—Pluto. You may have heard that astronomers don’t consider Pluto or its brethren to be planets. However, most planetary scientists still do, which is why we're using that terminology here. There’s a limited amount we can learn about Pluto from Earth because it’s so far from us. Pluto, however, is a scientific goldmine. It’s located in a region called the Kuiper Belt, home to many small planets, hundreds of thousands of ancient icy objects...
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On July 4, 2015, a NASA spacecraft called New Horizons was 5 billion kilometers away from Earth. It was only 10 days away from Pluto, after flying for 9.5 years, when it suddenly dropped out of contact. But let’s back up a little. As of 1989, mankind had successfully sent craft to every known planet in the solar system except one—Pluto. You may have heard that astronomers don’t consider Pluto or its brethren to be planets. However, most planetary scientists still do, which is why we're using that terminology here. There’s a limited amount we can learn about Pluto from Earth because it’s so far from us. Pluto, however, is a scientific goldmine. It’s located in a region called the Kuiper Belt, home to many small planets, hundreds of thousands of ancient icy objects...
