Earth Meets Pluto

Photo Credit: www.space.com

New Horizons, NASA's spacecraft has gotten to the climax of its almost 10 years mission to Pluto on July 14, 2015. It's the first spacecraft that has been designed for Pluto and now it has finally brought mankind to the distant icy world.

Pluto is just one of thousands of celestial bodies in a distant region of our solar system called the Kuiper belt which is filled with relics of the early space.

By studying it, scientists hope to explore more about how Earth and the rest of the solar system was formed more than 4 billion years ago. 

But did you know that months after New Horizons blasted off to space (January 2006), Pluto has been downgraded from a Planet to a Dwarf planet. This is after International Astronomical Union changed the definition of the word "planet". However, since the flyby to Pluto has taken place, the debate may be re-opened as we have now a glimpse on what Pluto may somehow look like.

Nonetheless, it is still a milestone worth celebrating. 

Per John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, "Science takes a great leap observing the Pluto system up close and flying into a new frontier that will help us better understand the origins of the solar system," 

The spacecraft is thought to continue its mission into the Kuiper belt. For your reference, it is powered by a nuclear generator that runs on plutonium. It is expected to run until the 2030s, when New Horizons will be 100 times further away than Earth is from the sun.


Watch part of the journey here: