<a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=3&amp;gallery_id=2&amp;image_id=67" target=" blank">NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI</a></em>
<a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=3&gallery_id=2&image_id=67" target=" blank">NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI</a></em>
- Science
- No Place Like Home
As New Horizons Speeds Toward Pluto, We Revisit Its Gorgeous Jupiter Pics
Pluto won’t be the only world the New Horizons spacecraft gets a good look at.
In 2007, New Horizons caught an angry volcano in the act of exploding. Blasting plumes of material 180 miles into the sky, the volcano is called Tvashtar — and it’s located on Io, one of Jupiter’s four largest moons.
Why Jupiter? Even though New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched, it needed a bit of help on its 3-billion-mile journey to Pluto. As the spacecraft swung around Jupiter, it used the planet’s gravity as a speed booster and ultimately shaved almost four years off its total travel time to Pluto. (Learn more about the historic mission to Pluto on the National Geographic Channel.)
But in
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