title: Some New Horizons calculations link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/some-new-horizons-calculations/ author: phil2nc description: post_id: 8995 created: 2014/12/08 19:34:06 created_gmt: 2014/12/09 00:34:06 comment_status: closed post_name: some-new-horizons-calculations status: publish post_type: post

Some New Horizons calculations

Everyone knows that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will make its closest approach to Pluto on 14 July 2015 at 11:50 UTC. But I wanted to know when I should start looking for the first images from that moment. Distance from Earth to Pluto 33.71 AU = (1.49597870700 x 10^11 m) x 33.71 5.042944221297 x 10^9 km Speed of Light 2.99792458 x 10^8 m/s = 1.0792528488 x 10^9 km/h One-way signal from Pluto to Earth 5.042944221297/1.0792528488 = 4.672625351 hours (4 hr 40 m) New Horizons closest approach 14 July 2015 11:49:59 UTC (7:50 EDT) (we will be on Daylight Time in the summer, making the difference between UT and ET 4 hours) Photo from closest approach 16:30 UTC (2:00 PM EDT) P.S. I really don't like NASA's standard web page template at all -- the fonts are way too tiny for comfort and the narrow main window frame is oh so 90's. Someone needs to introduce their web team to HTML5/CSS3 and Bootstrap, and soon.

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