Soyuz flew to the ISS. The new astronauts in the way – Polish Radio

                             On board the New Horizons spacecraft, which on July 14 will fly near Pluto are the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh American astronomer who discovered the planet 85 years ago. NASA agency would thus symbolically honor of the astronomer and his discovery. Tombaughu’s widow and his two children offered ounce of his ashes, which were placed in an aluminum capsule bearing an appropriate inscription on board the probe.
                         

The probe New Horizons will fly on July 14 at a distance of 12.550 km from the surface of Pluto, until recently considered the ninth and most distant planet from the Sun, the solar system. Pluto, however, lost that status in 2006. When it turned out that there is only one of several most massive objects belonging to the so-called. The Kuiper Belt is located on the edge of the solar system and composed of rock and ice asteroids. Since then, Pluto is considered a dwarf planet.

Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997) is best known for his discovery in 1930. Pluto, but he also discovered many asteroids and Kuiper Belt said. He also led the study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

The daughter of astronomer Annette Tombaugh-Sitze, and her younger brother Alden (both in their seventies) going to be on Tuesday 14 July, during the historic flight, mission command center probe Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland. Their mother and widow of astronomer died in 2012. At the age of 99 years.

– I think my dad would be very worried New Horizons mission. Besides, who would not be? When looked at through a telescope Pluto was just a bright point – said Annette.

Source: CNN / Newsource

The spacecraft, which first will examine closer this celestial body is also an American postage stamp with a denomination of 29 cents in 1991. with the image of the planet and the words “Pluto has not yet examined” and two 25-cent coins – one from Florida, where the probe was launched 19 January 2006. and the second from the state of Maryland, where they live its designers and where there is a mission command center.

The probe also carries two US flags and two CDs, on which there are pictures of a team of scientists who designed and supervise the mission and the names of 434,738 people at the right time enrolled and registered online.

PAP / fc