Lessons From Pluto

On January 19, 2006 NASA’s New Horizons (NH) space probe was launched with Pluto as its destination. Ironically, the same year NH was launched, Pluto was demoted from its status as a planet and reclassified as a dwarf planet. A little over a year after launch, cruising at about 36,000 mph, NH swung around Jupiter, using the giant planet’s gravitational pull as a slingshot to propel itself toward Pluto, now at a speed of about 45,000 mph. On July 14, 2015, nine and a half years after launch NH...