After nearly a decade, we’re almost there. July 14 will be the fly-by. Read more?
Tom Stolze: “A lot folks don’t know Pluto’s elliptical orbit around the sun takes 248 earth years! So NASA had to do this while Pluto is nearest to the Earth. In another 248 years there might not even be an Earth — or an Earth with humans. And, by the way, the New Horizons spacecraft has been the fastest of all, at 36,373 mph; it set the record for the highest launch speed of a human-made object from Earth. Even at that speed it will have taken 3462 days to go the 4.5 billion miles . . . and needs just 228 watts of power to operate all the cameras and other scientific equipment on board.”
☞ I’m not saying 36,373 miles per hour isn’t really fast. But because the earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old, you could say we’ve been going one mile per year.
As my friend Bobby would say: “Think about it.”
