NASA New Horizons about to fly by Jupiter on its way to Pluto
Monday Feb 26, 2007
On the weekend of February 17 and 18, my son Nick and I attended Space Camp at Space Center Houston, which is the visitor's center for the NASA Johnson Space Center. After we got back, I was poking around Google looking for cool pictures and information about space exploration, and came across the New Horizons mission to Pluto. While the probe is the first probe to sent to study Pluto, it won't reach Pluto until 2015, so we have a bit of time to think about that. But on Wednesday morning (UTC) the probe will make a close approach to Jupiter in order to gain speed, and of course it will study Jupiter as it flies by. The probe is already traveling at 43,000 miles per hour, which, if I remember from what I read some time back, is the fastest speed of any space probe. Flying by Jupiter will add another 9,000 miles per hour to bring the probe's speed to over 52,000 miles per hour!
