New Horizons crosses 9 AU
Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 21:23 UTC
New Horizons passed a planetary milepost today at 10:00 UTC when it reached a distance of 9 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun - about 1.35 billion kilometers (836.6 million miles), or nine times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
"The spacecraft destined for the ninth planet is now just beyond 9 AU and continuing outbound for the solar system's frontier at more than 60,000 kilometers per hour!" says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of NASA Headquarters.
New Horizons has covered nearly 1.56 billion kilometers (970.5 million miles) since its launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on January 19, 2006. Speeding toward Pluto at about 67,500 kilometers (42,000 miles) per hour, New Horizons will zip past the orbit of Saturn - where the Cassini spacecraft now operates - on June 8. That crossing will make New Horizons the farthest spacecraft on its way to or at its primary target.
New Horizons itself won't have long to enjoy this latest accomplishment, though, as mission operators will put the spacecraft into regularly scheduled hibernation today (February 21, 2008) at 20:50 UTC.
Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
| Source: JHU/APL | |
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