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Podcasts Take Two
NASA spacecraft passes Neptune's orbit on its way to Pluto
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Aug 27, 2014
Listen • 7:41
NASA spacecraft passes Neptune's orbit on its way to Pluto
Pluto - the solar system's loneliest dwarf planet - is getting a friend... eventually. It's the New Horizons probe from NASA and it just passed Neptune's orbit.
An artist's concept shows the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, in July 2015.
An artist's concept shows the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, in July 2015.
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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
)

Pluto - the solar system's loneliest dwarf planet - is getting a friend... eventually. It's the New Horizons probe from NASA and it just passed Neptune's orbit.

 Pluto - the solar system's loneliest dwarf planet - is getting a friend. NASA's New Horizons probe is on track to meet up with the freezing cold chunk of rock after having traveled over 3 billion miles. And while it's not quite there yet, it'll have traveled about ten years by the time it gets there.

Yesterday - it passed Neptune's orbit.

The reason they sent it out in 2006? To help us learn more about Pluto, because, as it turns out, we don't know much. A Martinez speaks with

- a Senior Editor with the Planetary Society about the New Horizons probe.