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NASA Spacecraft Takes Photo From 3.79 Billion Miles

NASA Spacecraft Takes Photo From 3.79 Billion Miles

It's broken a record which stood for 27 years

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

NASA has released a photograph taken 3.79 billion miles away from Earth.

The record-breaking photo was taken by the New Horizons spacecraft when it flew past Pluto (you'll always be a planet to me, Pluto) in July 2015.

After flying past Pluto, the spacecraft entered into the Kupier Belt and the pictures show an even more diverse landscape than the scientists had previously believed.

Using Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) technology New Horizons was able to photograph several objects in the Belt as well as some dwarf planets.

The false-colour images were taken at the furthest ever point from Earth captured by a spacecraft - they're also the closest ever images of objects in the Kupier Belt.

New Horizons is the fifth spacecraft to go beyond the outer planets of our solar systems, so is in a prime position to break a few records. It's on-track to smash another record next year, when it flies past an object at the edge of our solar system and has the most distant planetary encounter ever.

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Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator, said: "New Horizons has long been a mission of firsts - first to explore Pluto, first to explore the Kuiper Belt, fastest spacecraft ever launched," Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator.

"And now, we've been able to make images farther from Earth than any spacecraft in history." Show off.

NASA is hoping to use the spacecraft's photos to learn more about the objects in the Kuiper Belt; however, for the time being it's 'in hibernation' while it travels to its destination and won't be 'woken up' until June.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft previously held the record for the image taken furthest out in space, after it took the famous 'Pale Blue Dot' image 27 years ago.

NASA

That teeny little dot, which was actually made up of 60 images, is the Earth. And I hate to have to say this, Flat Earthers, but it looks quite spherical to me.

Source: The Independent; NASA

Featured Image Credit: NASA

Topics: Interesting, US News, Nasa, space