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hmm

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three billion miles away from earth

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near the farthest reaches of our solar

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system is the heavenly body with an

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extreme orbit known for 76 years as

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pluto

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was considered the ninth planet in our

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solar system until 2006 when after much

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debate it was reclassified by the

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international astronomical union as a

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dwarf planet officially dropping its

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name

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for a number well it certainly doesn't

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affect pluto

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pluto is the same thing it was before it

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was discovered

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before it was given the name and before

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the name was changed

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nor does pluto's reclassification change

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the importance of nasa's first mission

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to study it

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we have ignition and liftoff of nasa's

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new horizons spacecraft on a decade

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launched in january 2006 a thousand

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pound new horizon spacecraft will travel

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through space for nine and a half years

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before meeting up with pluto in the

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summer of 2015.

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the last time pluto was in this position

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in its orbit

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was during the french and indian war it

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takes 248 earth years to travel around

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its orbit and come back to the same

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place again at the speed of light

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sending a radio signal back from the

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spacecraft from pluto to earth it will

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take four and a half hours

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operating on less power than a pair of

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common 100 watt light bulbs new horizons

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will map the highest interest areas of

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pluto to a resolution of 50 meters less

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than the length of a football field 3

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billion miles away

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it'll then move on to survey pluto's

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neighborhood the atmosphere ancient

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materials and small bodies of the kuiper

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belt a chaotic region astrophysicists

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believe can tell us how earth the

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planets even our sun were made

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we have primitive material

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chunks of rock and ice

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millions of objects out there in the

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kuiper belt and

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we know very little about it we didn't

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discover it until 1992.

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traveling three billion miles to frozen

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rocky pluto and its environs new

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horizons is in a way going back in time

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to the chemical building blocks of the

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solar system and life

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to learn more about the new horizons