how many years does it take to reach pluto from earth?

Question

how many years does it take to reach pluto from earth

17,400 miles

Answer 1

The (unmanned) New Horizons mission gets a gravity assist from Jupiter today (28 February) which will increase its speed and cut its journey time to Pluto by at least 2 years~

Wikipedia explains:

LAUNCH

New Horizons is a NASA unmanned mission, which is expected to be the first to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix and Hydra. NASA may also approve flybys of one or more other Kuiper Belt Objects.

New Horizons was successfully launched on January 19, 2006. After a flyby of Jupiter in February 2007, it is expected to arrive at Pluto in July 2015 before leaving the Solar System.

The New Horizons spacecraft was launched directly into an Earth- and solar-escape trajectory. It had an Earth-relative velocity of about 16.21 km/s (36,300 mph) just after its last engine shut down, making it the fastest spacecraft launch ever.

New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers mission category, larger and more expensive than Discovery missions but smaller than "flagship" programs.

GRAVITY ASSIST

"New Horizons received a Jupiter gravity assist with a closest approach at 5:43:40 UTC (12:43:40 am) on February 28th, 2007. It passed through the Jupiter system at 21 km/s (47,000 mph).

New Horizons was the first probe launched directly towards Jupiter since the Ulysses probe in 1990. Although there were backup launch opportunities in February 2006 and February 2007, only the first 23 days of the 2006 window permitted the Jupiter flyby.

Any launch outside that period would have forced the spacecraft to fly a slower trajectory directly to Pluto, delaying its encounter by 2–4 years.

The flyby increased New Horizons' speed away from the Sun by nearly 4 km/s (9,000 mph), putting the spacecraft on a faster trajectory to Pluto, about 2.5 degrees out of the plane of the solar system (the "ecliptic").

The second link below is the official mission website and you can keep up to date as regards its progress by periodically logging on there,

Answer 2

This question does not have a specific answer. You have to specify a lot of parameters otherwise it is pointless. It is like asking how long does it take to get from Athens-Greece to Cape Town-South Africa. depending on the when and the how anywhere from a few hours to years. As you can tell from your answers it varies. Besides orbital positions and stuff a lot depends on the technology available. As things are today a couple of decades. Light on the other hand needs a few hours to cover the same distance. The Model T had a top speed of a breathtaking 70 km. It was thought that 100km per hour would kill you. Now there are speed limits that are much lower than the top speeds achievable by an average car.

Answer 3

With today's propulsion technology about 9-10 years is the fastest we can get there. The New Horizons space probe to Pluto was launched on a high speed trajectory with Gravity boosts from other planets in 2006 and should get there in 2015 then it will travel on into the Kuiper belt arriving in 2019.

Answer 4

Do you see the problem here? How long does it take you to go one mile? Can you see how there are almost an infinite number of answers to this?

Almost Doug, that's the circumfrence, not diameter.

You appear to have messed up again, did you mean to say 17,400 MPH? because 17,400 miles has no meaning inthis context.

Answer 5

So far it's 9.5 years, New Horizons spacecraft. The previous value was 12 years, which it took Voyager 2 to reach the orbit of Pluto despite a remarkable four gravitational assists.

Answer 6

depends when you go (the earth and pluto are not always the same distance apart) and how fast you go

plan your trip so that jupiter will be along the way - they usually have pretty good parties there. imagine coming back and telling your friends, "Hey, I just got back from Pluto!"
The first thing they'll ask is if you stopped off at Jupiter. They'll think you wasted a trip if you answer "no."

Answer 7

New Horizons was launched on January 19 2006
Closet Approach will be on July 14 2015

Answer 8

it would take roughly 10 years

Answer 9

Hope this helps!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/pioneer/index.html

Answer 10

Much too long for any human to worry about, for at least another century I would think. They can't even figure out how to keep people alive long enough to get to Mars yet.