Pluto Approach
The first images of Pluto from New Horizons were created between September 21–24, 2006, during a test of the LORRI. They were released on November 28. The images, taken from a distance of approximately 4.2 billion kilometers (2.6 billion miles), confirmed the spacecraft's ability to track distant targets, critical for maneuvering toward Pluto and other Kuiper belt objects.
It is planned for New Horizons to fly within 10,000 km (6,200 mi) of Pluto in 2015. New Horizons will have a relative velocity of 13.78 km/s at closest approach, and will come as close as 27,000 km (17,000 mi) to Charon, although these parameters may be changed during flight.
Read more about this topic: New Horizons
Famous quotes containing the word approach:
“The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.”
—Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)