New Horizons

thumb|New Horizons space probe New Horizons is a space probe launched on 19 January 2006, that has done fly-by explorations of Pluto in 2015, and Ultima Thule in 2019. Quotes Well, this mission's always been about delayed gratification. It took us 12 years to sell it, it took us 5 years to build it, it took us 9 years just to get to the first target. So 'course you are gonna have to wait just a little bit. Alan Stern, principal investigator, in Press Conference of New Horizons after Ultima Thule fly-by (1 January 2019) [42:02-42:17] Unbeknownst to the general public, a bit of Clyde’s ashes had been tucked away on board New Horizons. ... Think about that for a minute: seventy years earlier, photons of light from the Sun had reflected off Pluto, traveled for four hours and over all those billions of miles to Earth, and passed through a telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona. Those photons created a tiny dot in a plate of photographic emulsion that had caught young Clyde Tombaugh’s eye when he examined that image a few weeks later, revealing the existence of a new, faraway planet. Now some atoms that had been part of Clyde were going to make the journey to that faraway world and then continue on, outward, to leave our solar system for interstellar space and the galaxy beyond. Whatever you believe about life, death, consciousness, and fate, this was surely a unique and wondrous memorial, unlike any other in history. Alan Stern and David Grinspoon (2018). Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto. Picador. (Ch. 9: Going Supersonic) Shortly after New Horizons flew past Pluto, Alan gave a talk in Vermont. After he spoke, a college student told him that for too long her generation had been saddled with the meme that their time was not as great as those of past generations. She said that their generation hadn’t witnessed wars that saved a world from fascism, that they missed the historic first steps on the Moon, the birth of computing, and so many other epochal events. Then she said that seeing Pluto explored was “our Moon landing, and the greatest thing that’s happened in our generation.” A shiver ran up Alan’s spine when she said that, and he realized that in her eyes the New Horizons mission had been successful in a way he had never before imagined. Alan Stern and David Grinspoon (2018). Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto. Picador. (Coda: A Final Discovery) A few months later, after Alan gave a talk to a business convention in Florida, he was approached by a middle-aged woman who came to him literally in tears. She explained that her teenage son had been a failing student until he saw the flyby of Pluto by New Horizons, and that Pluto’s exploration had inspired him to say, “That’s what I want to do when I grow up.” The mother wiped a tear and told Alan that her son had since transformed himself into a straight-A student. She said, “You all rescued my son.” Alan Stern and David Grinspoon (2018). Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto. Picador. (Coda: A Final Discovery) See also Space exploration External links Category:Astronomy