How Long Would It Take to Get to Pluto Traveling at the Speed of Light
It'southward a long way out to the dwarf planet Pluto. So, just how fast could we become there?
Pluto, the Dwarf planet, is an incomprehensibly long altitude abroad. Seriously, it's currently more 5 billion kilometers away from Earth. It challenges the imagination that anyone could ever travel that kind of distance, and yet, NASA'due south New Horizons has been making the journey, and it's going to get in there July, 2015.
Y'all may have only heard about this news. And I promise you, when New Horizons makes its close encounter, information technology'south going to be everywhere. And then allow me give you lot the advanced knowledge on just how amazing this journey is, and what information technology would take to cantankerous this enormous gulf in the Solar System.
Pluto travels on a highly elliptical orbit around the Sun. At its closest point, known as "perihelion", Pluto is only iv.4 billion kilometers out. That'south most xxx AU, or 30 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Pluto last reached this betoken on September fifth, 1989. At its nearly afar point, known every bit "aphelion", Pluto reaches a altitude of 7.3 billion kilometers, or 49 AU. This will happen on August 23, 2113.
I know, these numbers seem incomprehensible and lose their meaning. And then let me requite you some context. Light itself takes four.six hours to travel from the Earth to Pluto. If you wanted to send a signal to Pluto, it would accept 4.6 hours for your transmission to attain Pluto, then an additional four.half-dozen hours for their message to return to the states.
Permit'south talk spacecraft. When New Horizons blasted off from Earth, information technology was going 58,000 km/h. Just for comparison, astronauts in orbit are but jaunting along at 28,000 km/h. That's its speed going away from the Earth. When you add together up the speed of the World, New Horizons was moving away from the Sun at a baking 160,000 km/h.
Unfortunately, the pull of gravity from the Sun slowed New Horizons down. By the time it reached Jupiter, it was simply going 68,000 km/h. It was able to steal a lilliputian velocity from Jupiter and crank its speed back up to 83,000 km/h. When information technology finally reaches Pluto, it'll be going most l,000 km/h. And then how long did this journey take?
New Horizons launched on January nineteen, 2006, and it'll attain Pluto on July 14, 2015. Do a little math and you'll find that information technology has taken 9 years, 5 months and 25 days. The Voyager spacecraft did the altitude between World and Pluto in about 12.five years, although, neither spacecraft really flew past Pluto. And the Pioneer spacecraft completed the journeying in about eleven years.
Could you lot get to Pluto faster? Absolutely. With a more powerful rocket, and a lighter spacecraft payload, you could definitely shave down the flying fourth dimension. Simply at that place are a couple of problems. Rockets are expensive, coincidentally bigger rockets are super expensive. The other trouble is that getting to Pluto faster ways that it's harder to do any kind of science in one case you accomplish the dwarf planet.
New Horizons made the fastest journey to Pluto, but it's also going to fly by the planet at 50,000 km/h. That'south less time to take high resolution images. And if you lot wanted to actually go into orbit effectually Pluto, y'all'd demand more than rockets to lose all that velocity. So how long does it take to get to Pluto? Roughly 9-12 years. You lot could probably become there faster, but and so you'd go less scientific discipline done, and information technology probably wouldn't exist worth the rush.
Are you super excited about the New Horizons flyby of Pluto? Tell us all about it in the comments below.
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