US Postal Service sends stamp to Pluto on NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft

The US Postal Service has made history after a stamp which they placed on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft travelled a mind-blowing 5,250,843,896 km (3,262,723,132 miles) – all the way to Pluto.

 

The USPS earned a Guinness World Records title for the Farthest distance travelled by a postage stamp after the New Horizons spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, on 19 January 2006 and arrived at Pluto on 14 July 2015.

 

 

The momentous achievement was confirmed by official Guinness World Records adjudicator Jimmy Coggins at an event yesterday.

 

He told guests that the stamp had covered the distance of about 131 times the circumference of the Earth.

 

 

The record-breaking stamp that travelled on the rocket was from a special series created in 1991 which showed each of the nine planets in our Solar System and the vessels that had explored them.

 

However, in a compelling juxtaposition, the stamp which the USPS chose to attach to NASA’s Pluto-bound spacecraft read “Pluto-not yet explored”. Back in 1991 no spaceship had reached the dwarf planet.

 

 

Dr. Alan Stern, who is a planetary scientist, space program executive, aerospace consultant, and author, spoke at the certificate presentation today: “Hail to us – to human kind – for being inquisitive, adventurous and a record-breaking species. And hail to Guinness World Records for making record-setting an inspiring achievement for so many. Hail to exploration and hail to new horizons.”