How many coins are going to Pluto this week?

Two. A Florida State Quarter and a Maryland State Quarter.

As you may know, the NASA New Horizons spacecraft which launched 9 years ago is arriving at Pluto on this week. It's the first probe sent to Pluto, which was a planet when New Horizons launched, but has since been demoted to a dwarf planet.

The two state quarters were put aboard the spacecraft before launch, Florida because that is where the spacecraft was launched and Maryland because that is where it was built.

Here's a pic of the Florida State Quarter that is on the New Horizons spacecraft that is now very close to Pluto.



And if you want more information about these two quarters, here's an article about them. Very interesting to hear where the quarters came from, how they actually serve a purpose on the craft and are not just there for fun, and why they needed two of them... very cool!!!

http://collectspace.com/news/news-102808a.html

And for more information, photos and videos of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, check out the link:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

 

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Only 500000000. more miles to go

 

with them flying out of circulations like that, it won't be long till they are scarce.
lol
flying out... I crack my self up

 

This count-down on New Horizon is better that watching your bid on E-Bay.

 

As an amateur astronomer, I plan to be up that morning (5:42A.M.) and watch NASA's live streaming of the event. I picked up some very useful information in turn, from other various links your link provided. It pays to be retired. I can go back to bed when I'm finished watching. :>) Thanks.

 

Well, we'll probably get some kind of communication back from the Plutonians asking why their planet was downsized and wondering who in the heck designed those quarters!!!

 

Or asking our world for a bail out. Life is tough everywhere.

 

If we ever get those back I wonder what the slab would look like

 

Pretty cool stuff, I'll be watching.

 

Less than 36 hours to go until the New Horizons (and the pair of state quarters) make their closest approach to Pluto... currently they are just over 1 million miles away after travelling about 3 billion miles! Here's the latest photo sent back when the probe was around 2.5 million miles away...

 

That much circulation is gonna ruin the grade of those coins. And the landing is surely going to cause rim damage!

What were they thinking!

 

Once again the government avoids thinking about us collectors.

 

What's the point in sending quarters to Pluto? Have they been sent as spending money in case ET's find them and decide to visit Earth?

 

As cool as it is... Im more into the 1909 wheat cent on mars. That one has a better shot of coming back, atleast in my lifetime. Unfortunatley it would prolly end up in a museum rather than my safe lol.

 

Those state quarters are 3.2 *billion* miles from earth...BILLION...no way they're comin' back!

Short answer st was more of a gesture they came up with on a drive to visit Ole Jeb down in Texas. They ended up being used as balancing weights on the craft, they way I understood it. They are actually serving a purpose LOL!

 

Am i the only one creeped out by the fact that they sent information about us and the earth on little crafts shot billions of miles into space hoping that said information is found by future "space explorers." Thanks a lot science. If we get invaded im gonna want to know whos bright idea this was.

 

How many?

All the ones on the ship.

 

Didn't a 1793 large cent get sent into space? I thought I remembered reading about it being the coin that traveled the furthest from Philadelphia at the time. Couldn't have been a space shuttle though, since those orbited at less than 500 miles from Earth.

Either that or I have a vivid imagination.

 

I've never heard about that.

Gus Grissom took a bunch of pocket change and paper money with him on his first suborbital flight. They recovered 52 Mercs when they pulled up the Liberty Bell 7 in 1999.

 

One more thing and i'll shut up: Did a rocket scientist just tape that quarter on there? One, the tape residue. And two, your building a billion dollar space craft and you use tape. Maybe because of my lack of a rocket scientist degree but i dont think id use tape.