AMERICA IS THE FIRST
COUNTRY TO REACH PLUTO
Washington 14.- This
morning, the United States became the first country to reach Pluto -- and the
first country to explore the entire classical solar system: Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
NASA's
New Horizons interplanetary probe has been making its way to Pluto since
January 19, 2006, and has been providing the world with the sharpest photos
ever seen of our Solar System's most prominent "dwarf planet." Today,
it made its closest approach to Pluto yet -- about 8,000 miles -- at around
07:49:57 EDT.
Here's
the photo they took -- which, despite traveling at the speed of light (186,000
miles per second), took four and a half hours to reach us here on Earth as it
crossed the 3 billion miles between here and Pluto:
That
we were able to get so close to Pluto today is a feat whose probability
scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson likened to "a hole-in-one on a two-mile golf
shot." He's right.
Every
once in a while, a photo comes along that has the ability to shift not just how
we see our place in the universe, but how we see ourselves -- not just as
Americans, but as citizens of Earth.
This
is one of those photos, and I hope you'll share it with someone today.
More
soon –
John
Dr. John P. Holdren
Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
The White House
Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
The White House