NASA's New
Horizons spacecraft and its Atlas 5 booster are set to launch on a nine-year
trek to Pluto today.
The first
probe to explore Pluto and its moon system, New Horizons is set to lift off
from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Today’s launch window opens at 1:24 p.m. EST (1824 GMT) and stretches for about
one hour and 59 minutes.
If today’s
space shot is successful, New Horizons should spend the next nine years
speeding through the solar system and reach Pluto in July 2015. Astronomers hope
the spacecraft will shed light on the planet’s composition and multiple moons.
As one of
the brightest, and largest, bodies in the Kuiper Belt – a region of icy objects
beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune – researchers hope Pluto may contain
pristine material from the formation of the solar system.
-- SPACE.com Staff
Credit: NASA
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