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Posted by: ToSeek Jan 13 2006, 06:38 PM

I assume that New Horizons will eventually leave the solar system. Since it's touted as the "fastest space probe ever", will it someday overtake the Voyagers. Also, is there any sort of plaque or other item for potential aliens to read, as there were with the other "interstellar" spacecraft?

Posted by: ToSeek Jan 13 2006, 06:40 PM

If someone in charge wants to move this to the "New Horizons" subfolder, that would be fine with me. That's where I thought I was putting it.

Posted by: JRehling Jan 13 2006, 06:49 PM

This has all been discussed in early NH threads.

It will have the fastest launch, but won't catch the Voyagers, because they received greater gravity assists than NH will (Saturn, mainly).

There is no plaque dedicted to alien readership, although anyone finding the spacecraft could obviously glean a lot of information about its origin and creators. For a very long time from now, the trajectory of the craft would point unambiguously back to our solar system.

Posted by: ToSeek Jan 13 2006, 07:29 PM

Thanks for the info - I should have done a search before posting. (I'm on here a lot, but almost exclusively in the Mars rovers area, so I haven't been keeping up with the New Horizons posts until very recently.)

Posted by: ljk4-1 Jan 18 2006, 09:04 PM

New Horizons should have at least had one of these affixed to it:

http://www.earthbounddog.com/



BTW, I once read that the builders of Pioneer 10 and 11, TRW, have guaranteed to repair the probes free of charge should they ever be returned to Earth. Does NH have a similar warranty?

Posted by: ToSeek Jan 19 2006, 09:35 PM

I gave my parents a set of those some years ago.

Posted by: mchan Jan 19 2006, 09:51 PM

Except the pulsar location diagram is missing the time base pictogram so the aliens won't be able to interpret the rotation of the pulsars in the diagram. If you are abducted and are lost, they won't be able to find your home.