Explanation:
Destination: Pluto.
The New Horizons spacecraft roared off its launch pad at
Cape Canaveral in
Florida,
USA last week toward adventures in the distant
Solar System.
The craft is one of the
fastest spaceships ever
launched by humans, having passed
the Moon only nine hours after launch and is on track to
buzz Jupiter in early 2007.
Even traveling over 75,000 kilometers per hour, the
New Horizons craft will not arrive at Pluto until 2015.
Pluto
is the only remaining planet that has never been visited by a
spacecraft or photographed up close.
After Pluto,
the robot spaceship will visit one or more
Kuiper Belt Objects orbiting the Sun even further out than Pluto.
Pictured,
the New Horizons craft launches into
space atop a powerful
Atlas V rocket.
