Listen: The Journey to Pluto Began Because Scientists Disagreed With a Postage Stamp
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The 29-cent Pluto 'Not Yet Explored' U.S. stamp. Source: USPS/collectSPACE
On July 15, 2015 (IST), NASA’s New Horizons prove flew past Pluto, becoming the first spacecraft to do so. Much has been said about this nine-year, 4.8-billion km journey. However, this is the little-known story of the early years of Pluto’s exploration plan; the story of an innocuous US postage stamp that branded Pluto as “Not Yet Explored”, and how it fired up scientists’ desire to reach the dwarf planet.
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