The New Horizons spacecraft will travel more than 3 billion miles (5 billion kilometers) on its journey to Pluto, its largest moon, Charon, and the Kuiper Belt beyond. This web site uses the Maine Solar System Model to help us to understand the distances and time involved on this journey.

A nice feature of the Maine Solar System Model is the placement of the Earth model one mile from the Sun. The actual distance from the Sun to Earth is about 93 million miles. That puts the scale of the distances of the Solar System to the distances of the Maine Solar System Model as 93 million to 1.

This distance from the Sun to the Earth is one astronomical unit (AU).

The Pluto-Charon model is placed at Houlton, Maine, 40 miles from the Sun in Presque Isle, because Pluto's orbit averages about 40 AU from the Sun. Pluto will be about 31 AU from Earth when New Horizons arrives because the planet’s orbit is highly elliptical (or oval shaped). This means that the New Horizons spacecraft must travel 31 AU to reach the ninth planet.

The model Sun is in Folsom Hall at The University of Maine at Presque Isle.

New Horizons Now

This page will follow the progress of New Horizons. New Horizons initially sped away from Earth at about 36,000 miles per hour – the fastest spacecraft ever launched. The spacecraft will get a gravity assist at Jupiter as it flies past that planet 47,000 miles per hour. When the spacecraft reaches Pluto, it will travel past the planet and its moons at about 30,000 miles per hour. This translates to about 1.7 to 2.6 feet per hour on the Maine Solar System Model.

The <play> button on the New Horizons Now page will "launch" the spacecraft from Earth and the <pause> button will stop the spacecraft. When the spacecraft reaches the Kuiper Belt at Houlton, the <rewind> button will begin the process again back at Earth.

The <step forward> button on the New Horizons Now page will show where New Horizons is on the Maine Solar System Model. A magnifier that enlarges the route from Earth to the Kuiper Belt Objects shows how New Horizons would travel through the Maine Solar System Model.

The distance from the Sun to Earth is one astronomical unit (AU). The Earth on the Maine Solar System Model is one mile from the Sun model. This makes each mile along the Maine Solar System Model represent one AU. The New Horizons Now page numbers the miles along the route to show how many AU New Horizons is from Earth.

The Solar System Orbits

The Solar System Orbits page puts the Solar System model in action. The planet models from Earth to Pluto will revolve around the Sun as New Horizons travels the Maine Solar System Model route. This page gives some information on each planet model as its orbit is encountered.

See which planets travel into Canada as New Horizons travels to the Kuiper Belt.

Your Age

This page will help you to appreciate the time it takes for New Horizons to reach Pluto-Charon and the Kuiper Belt by comparing major events of the New Horizons mission to your own age.

Important events and dates during the New Horizons mission are launch on January 19, 2006, the Jupiter flyby on February 28, 2007, the Pluto-Charon encounter in July 2015, and the potential Kuiper Belt Object encounters in 2017 to 2020.

How old will you be be during these events?

The Speed of Light

Would you like to travel as fast or faster than the speed of light? This page will show you how on the Maine Solar System Model.

After you press the <play> button, a ray of light will move along the Maine Solar System Model from the Sun model to the Earth model showing the relative speed of light. Press the <step forward> button to move the ray to the next planet. When the ray reaches Earth, the <rewind> button will restart the ray at the Sun.

Light travels 186,000 miles (297,600 km) per second. This translates to about 11 feet (3.2m) per second on the Maine Solar System Model. A small screen shows a video of the route from the Sun model at the University of Maine at Presque Isle's Folsom Hall to the Earth model one mile away, and advances 11 feet each second along the route.

If you run 7.2 miles per hour (11.6 km per hour), you would be running at the speed of light on the Solar System Model. It would take you about 8 minutes and 12 seconds to run from the Sun to Earth. It would take you almost 6 hours to reach Pluto at the same rate.

Space Science Links

Visit the Space Science Links page for additional information on the planets, the New Horizons mission and the Maine Solar System Model.