New Horizons: One Billion Miles From Pluto

astroengine writes "On Feb. 10, NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons probe entered the homestretch of its mission. When you are sprinting across the solar system, 'homestretch' is the final 1 billion miles of your journey. That sounds like quite a long stretch! But the half-ton spacecraft has already logged 2 billion miles since its launch in early 2006. That's twice the distance between Earth and Saturn. Though the icy dwarf planet is still three years away from its close encounter, mission scientists call this the Late Cruise phase of the flight."

Comments

Re:Obligatory

[Samantha Wright]

It flew through the orbit of Uranus on March 18, 2011.

Scientists at NASA reported that it made a "woosh" noise as it did so, despite the vacuum. They then started a petition to rename Uranus to Urectum.

Detailed location data

[dtmos]

A page showing New Horizons' location relative to the planets is here. Detailed ephemeris and other data on the probe can be obtained from NASA's HORIZONS system -- click on Target body "[change]", then enter "-98" in the search box.

9.98 AU from Pluto

[dfcamara]

Distance from Sun (AU): 22.34
Distance from Earth (AU): 23.06
Distance from Pluto (AU): 9.98

IMHO much more sense than billions of miles.

Re:The Vertically Challenged Planet

[SJHillman]

You've got a point.

I bet when NASA engineers play beer pong, each cup is moving at a different speed with a different path. And you have to aim from the next city over looking through a spyglass.