A
spacecraft headed for the Solar System's edge has aimed itself at the planet
Jupiter in a long-distance slingshot on toward Pluto.
NASA's New
Horizons probe fired its thrusters in two brief maneuvers - one on Jan. 30
and an earlier event on Jan. 28 - for a total speed change of about 40 miles per
hour (or about 18 meters per second). Launched
on Jan. 19, New Horizons carries seven primary instruments on a mission to
study Pluto, its moons and the icy Kuiper Belt objects beyond the ninth planet.
A
third, final trajectory maneuver is set for Feb. 18, but New Horizons launch
placed it so close to its flight path that the probe has managed save much more
hydrazine propellant for later use than expected, APL spokesperson Mike Buckley
told SPACE.com. The probe will swing past Jupiter on Feb. 28, 2007 and
use the planet's gravity as a boost toward Pluto, he added.
"We're on our
way to an exciting Jupiter encounter and a date with destiny at Pluto," said
New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern,
of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Stern will
celebrate the centennial anniversary of the birth of astronomer Clyde
Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930, on Feb. 4 with a presentation at
the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.
Tombaugh
discovered Pluto on Feb. 18, 1930 at Flagstaff, Arizona's Lowell Observatory.
The University of Kansas' Clyde Tombaugh Observatory is named after the
astronomer, who died in 1997. [Click here for more
information on the centennial Tombaugh discussion.]
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