Need to Know - New Horizons

This week saw a nine year long expedition finally complete its primary mission as the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto.

New Horizons left earth in January 2006 heading over 3 billion miles to reach Pluto at the furtherest reaches of our solar system. At the time of its launch the iPhone had not been released and its target, Pluto, was still considered a planet. After years of testing various instrumentation as it passed closer planets and traveling through empty space New Horizons finally managed a flyby over Pluto at 7,800 miles above the surface lasting only a few hours but enough time to capture and send back images and other scientific information to a loyal crew back on earth patiently waiting. Traveling at over 45,000mph it was impossible to stop so after capturing all it could in its short window of time over Pluto it now travels beyond into even further reaches of space sending back more information. It's expected that New Horizons will continue to travel and broadcast signal back into 2030 or longer.