{"id":180500,"date":"2010-01-14T09:52:55","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T14:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/?p=10127"},"modified":"2010-01-14T09:52:55","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T14:52:55","slug":"new-horizons-is-a-long-way-away-bad-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/180500","title":{"rendered":"New Horizons is a long way away | Bad Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I follow <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/NewHorizons2015\">the New Horizons Pluto probe Twitter feed<\/a>, and recently it linked to a graphic <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/pluto.jhuapl.edu\/mission\/whereis_nh.php\">showing where the spacecraft is right now<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/files\/2010\/01\/nh_position_jan2010.jpg\" alt=\"nh_position_jan2010\" title=\"nh_position_jan2010\" width=\"510\" height=\"604\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10128\"\/><\/center><br clear=\"all\"><\/p>\n<p>Man, is that way out in the black. The probe is now closer to the orbit of Uranus than it is to Saturn, though both planets are over a <em>billion<\/em> kilometers away from New Horizons right now. <\/p>\n<p>The solar system is frakkin&#8217; <strong>BIG<\/strong> (if I may mix my colorful scifi metaphors). If you&#8217;re still not sure just how roomy things are out there, even at its current speed of 16.5 km\/sec (10 miles\/sec) &#8212; fast enough to cross the entire United States in five minutes &#8212; New Horizons won&#8217;t pass the orbit of Uranus until March 18, 2011, <em>more than a year from now<\/em>. Neptune&#8217;s orbit isn&#8217;t until August 24, 2014. <\/p>\n<p>One thing to notice: from this point of view, planets revolve around the Sun in a counterclockwise fashion. Given the position of Pluto, you can see the two are heading for a close encounter soon. Well, for a sufficiently broad definition of &#8220;soon&#8221;: July 14, 2015. <\/p>\n<p>Space is big.<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/nCvzons-35nMfEM77vveXUGdYc0\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/nCvzons-35nMfEM77vveXUGdYc0\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap><\/a><br \/>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/nCvzons-35nMfEM77vveXUGdYc0\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/nCvzons-35nMfEM77vveXUGdYc0\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/BadAstronomyBlog\/~4\/HwEWFS8iEEA\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/DiscoverMag\/~4\/L7bCjHAyY1E\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I follow the New Horizons Pluto probe Twitter feed, and recently it linked to a graphic showing where the spacecraft is right now: Man, is that way out in the black. The probe is now closer to the orbit of Uranus than it is to Saturn, though both planets are over a billion kilometers away [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}