New Horizons at 50 AU - Reaches Rare Landmark, Takes Historic Photo - The Cosmic Companion April 18, 2021
The New Horizons spacecraft reaches a milestone few spacecraft have seen...
New Horizons, the only spacecraft to ever visit Pluto, has now reached a new landmark at the edge of our planetary system.
In 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft became the first robotic explorer ever to visit the the dwarf planet Pluto, and its family of five moons.
On April 17, at 8:42 pm EDT, New Horizons became just the fifth spacecraft to travel more than 50 times further from the Sun than the Earth. In order to mark the occasion, mission controllers took a view around another robotic explorer in the void — Voyager 1.
At a distance of around 18 billion kilometers (11.2 billion miles) from New Horizons, Voyager 1 was too distant to be seen in the photograph, but this image remains a testament to the innate human need for exploration.
Read more: https://thecosmiccompanion.net/new-horizons-at-50-au-reaches-rare-landmark-takes-historic-photo
We have amazing guests coming up on Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companion!
THIS WEEK! April 13 (s4/e15): Affelia Wibisono of University College London, discussing the recent discovery of X-rays from Uranus.
April 20 (s4/e16): Andrew Fazekas, National Geographic’s “Night Sky Guy,” talking about his National Geographic Backyard Guide to the Night Sky.
Plus – NASA’s Joshua Ravich, mechanical engineering lead for the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.
April 27 (s4/e17): Ohad Harlev, CEO of Lyteloop, discussing new technology for storing data in space.
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