Earlier this week the spacecraft Dawn was successfully launched. It has a 3 billion mile journey to the heart of the asteroid belt. It should arrive there around 2011. Than it's on to a 2015 date with the dwarf planet Ceres.The ship's rockets are the first to use ion propulsion engines, the same type of engines that the TIE Fighters used in Star Wars. The engines use electrically charged xenon gas to generate thrust.
1 comment:
That is so cool to see science fiction become science fact.
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