New Horizons: Mission to Pluto, Charon, and Beyond; Launch of Long-Awaited Project to Study the Outer Solar System

摘要

As I sit down to write this article, it is now exactly 22 minutes after the launch of man's first spacecraft designed to study the planet Pluto and its satellite Charon; 22 minutes since the launch of the first robotic mission to study the denizens at the very edge of the Solar System. For four decades, since the very beginning of the exploration of the Moon and the Solar System, there has been a great desire to learn more about what was once called the Ninth Planet, but what is now sometimes called "the King of the TNOs" - the Trans-Neptunian Objects that populate the Kuiper Belt well beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune. The culmination of those dreams is the scientific probe, known as New Horizons that shot up into the sky over Cape Canaveral in Florida today, January 19, 2006. It is a truly amazing feat of technology and one that has been in the planning stages for over 15 years.