Endeavour

On a side note, I read Endeavour will be moving on to check a few of the other outer-dwarfs after Pluto.

Sorry, I wasn't angry by your comments 4 or 5 posts previous!

Where did you read that Endeavour will be moving-on to check other outer dwarf planets? It would take over a decade for a shuttle to reach the outer solar system.... ...I need a source for the article!

Sorry, uh, I meant the 'new horizons' probe we were chatting about. Heh.

Yeh, right now it has just passed Jupiter and is on it's way direct to Pluto. It's encounter with Jupiter was to give it extra speed, in order to shorten the journey. Basically, Jupiter's gravity caught the probe and then flung it out towards Pluto... ...like a slingshot.

... ...Just under 3000 days to Pluto!

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

I know! Wasn't that spectacular? Using Jupiter as a slingshot! Apparently they cut years off the travel time to Pluto. Imagine how accurate they would have had to have been; one metre off course, or one metre per second to slow, and 'new horizons' would have ended up riding the Red spot.

I know... ..I'd love to see the maths behind the prediction of orbits and the flight-paths of these probes. And imagine: At the end of the mission, the probe will reach Pluto at such an angle that Pluto will 'capture' it and bring it into constant orbit! Pluto's smaller than our bloody moon I think!

I don't think they are planning on Pluto 'catching' it. Thats what I said earlier, I think they are looking at sendin it onward to check out some o th Dwarfs beyond pluto.

Oh, you know what? I think that you're right. It's just going to end-up like Voyager 1 and 2 which are well past Pluto at this stage.