NASA to launch space probe called New Horizons

The American space agency NASA has plans to launch its latest space problem called New Horizons. This probe would be sent to the farthest planet in the Solar System, Pluto. The aim is to capture the first up-close imagery of Pluto, its moons and a region of the outer solar system called the Kuiper Belt.

The scheduled flight is set for next week if everything goes as planned. It would lift off atop a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket and would be launched at 1:24 p.m. ET Tuesday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. New Horizons has a long distance to cover on its journey to Pluto. As per NASA’s statistics, it would have to travel as much as 3 billion miles.

And despite being the fastest space vehicle ever, it would still take at least 10 years to reach its destination. However, NASA is hoping that the wait would be worth it. NASA’s project scientist Hal Weaver said in a statement on this mission: “The New Horizons mission is going somewhere no mission has gone before. This is the frontier of planetary science.”

New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern added his thoughts on this mission: “It’s the capstone of the initial reconnaissance of the planets. It’s something that will go down in history, not just for the way it changes textbooks, but for the sort of society we are, that we do these things of lasting historic importance, that we explore beyond our own world.”