NASA has announced that it is set to launch a small probe that will travel to Pluto, our solar system's most distant planet. The launch is scheduled to take place in January, 2006.
The New Horizons spacecraft is set to study Pluto and its moon, Charon, and the Kuiper belt of space objects. It is part of a program designed to complete what NASA officials are calling the 'initial reconnaissance' of our solar system.
'Exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is like conducting an archeological dig into the history of the outer solar system, a place where we can peek into the ancient era of planetary formation,' said Alan Stern, the principal investigator for New Horizons, in a statement.
The probe weighs about as much as a grand piano. The window for launch begins on January 17 and ends on February 14. If the launch can be accomplished before February 3, the probe can use the gravity from the planet Jupiter to slingshot itself to Pluto. That would cut its travel time by as many as five years.
Information from the probe will start to come back to earth in approximately 9.5 months due to the large distance between Pluto and Earth.
The probe will be a major project from NASA which is still reeling from the recent difficulties with the space shuttle program.
