New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto,artwork. New Horizons launched from Earth on 19 January 2006 and will take 9 years to reach Pluto,arriving mid-2015. It will spend 15 months studying this dwarf planet. Pluto (left),some 6 billion kilometres from the Sun (upper right),has never before been visited by a spacecraft from Earth. It is a small rocky,icy world with a thin atmosphere and a moon called Charon (centre right). The spacecraft will use cameras and scientific equipment to gather data,sending it back to Earth with the large (2.1-metre) dish antenna (white). New Horizons will also travel beyond Pluto to study other objects in the Kuiper Belt | |
Lizenzart: | Lizenzpflichtig |
Credit: | Science Photo Library / Van Ravenswaay, Detlev |
Bildgröße: | 5197 px × 3580 px |
Modell-Rechte: | nicht erforderlich |
Eigentums-Rechte: | nicht erforderlich |
Restrictions: | - |