Pluto from Charon



The NASA scientists are busy readying their spaceship to be launched on Pluto by the summer of 2015. It is scheduled to launch on Jan. 17. This mission will be the first space expedition aimed specifically at a celestial body beyond Neptune. Pluto is nearly 4 billion miles from Earth. It is the Solar System’s only planet that has never had a human-engineered visitor.



The spacecraft is piano-sized, and will take pictures and gather other data, spending five months in the vicinity of the planet. The spacecraft named New Horizons is a $700 million mission. Hoping to launch the spacecraft as early as possible, NASA scheduled the mission from Cape Canaveral. The spacecraft will travel at nearly 30,000 mph. And it will take nine hours to pass Earth’s moon.



Via: Physorg