New Horizons probe lifts off!!!

[alicia-w]

NASA's New Horizons probe lifts off for Pluto, the last unexplored planet in our solar system!!

[Skywatch_NC]

!!

Eric

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Wahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

[LaPlaceFF]

If they wanted to see Pluto.....all they had to do was go to Disneyland..

[gtalum]

Or even WDW, which is just 50 or 60 miles from Cape Canaveral.

[kevin]

Pluto rocks, I'm glad we'll be getting new information in the years to come.

[LaPlaceFF]

Walt Disney World!!!! Thats what I meant....Disneyland is in California right?

[kevin]

Yep. I get the two mixed up a lot too, you're not alone.

[gtalum]

It's easy for me to remember since I live in Florida.

[Terrell]

I'm very happy that the launch of the new horizons probe went off successfully today. I'm also glad that they were able to launch before 2 February 2006 because it means that Jupiter will be in position to give New Horizons a gravity boost meaning that the probe will reach Pluto, Charon, and Pluto's other 2 moons in 2015, rather than 2020.

I do wish we had sent one of the Voyager Spacecraft to Pluto back in the 70s when we launched the mission. The Planets had been aligned up in such a way that we could use the gravity of Jupiter to get to Saturn, then use Saturns gravity to go either to Pluto or Uranus, and from Uranus to go to Neptune. We had 2 Voyager spacecraft, so we could have sent Voyager 1 to Pluto and still had the Voyager 2 mission go past Uranus and Neptune. Instead Voyager 1 was instructed to fly behind Titan, Saturn's largest and most mysterious moon, which meant we couldn't use Saturn's gravity to reach Pluto with Voyager 1