{"id":19311,"date":"2016-07-19T20:44:57","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T12:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/outdated-pluto-not-yet-explored-stamp-takes-spotlight-as-most-traveled-postage\/"},"modified":"2016-07-19T20:44:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-19T12:44:57","slug":"outdated-pluto-not-yet-explored-stamp-takes-spotlight-as-most-traveled-postage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/outdated-pluto-not-yet-explored-stamp-takes-spotlight-as-most-traveled-postage\/","title":{"rendered":"Outdated \u2018Pluto: Not Yet Explored\u2019 stamp takes spotlight as most traveled postage"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_261646\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-261646\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-261646\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/160719-pluto-team-new-horizons-630x418.jpg\" alt=\"Pluto stamp canceled\" width=\"630\" height=\"418\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/160719-pluto-team-new-horizons-630x418.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/160719-pluto-team-new-horizons-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/160719-pluto-team-new-horizons-1240x824.jpg 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-261646\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 1991 stamp that served as the rallying cry for the New Horizons Mission to Pluto is \u201cupdated\u201d by members of the New Horizons science team on July 14, 2015, the day the spacecraft reached Pluto. (Credit: Bill Ingalls \/ NASA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We\u2019ve known for years that a 1991 Pluto stamp included on NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft is the farthest-out piece of postage, but now the U.S. Postal Service and Guinness World Records have officially put it in the record books.<\/p>\n<p>The message on the stamp, \u201cPluto: Not Yet Explored,\u201d was basically canceled a year ago when New Horizons flew past the dwarf planet, taking pictures as it zoomed by at 36,000 mph.<\/p>\n<p>To celebrate the record&nbsp;\u2013 and the New Horizons achievement that rendered the stamp obsolete \u2013 the USPS played host to the New Horizons team and Guinness World Records adjudicator Jimmy Coggins today at its Washington headquarters. Coggins presented a certificate recognizing the record to the Postal Service\u2019s Jim Cochrane, NASA\u2019s Jim Green and the Southwest Research Institute\u2019s Alan Stern, who is the principal investigator for the New Horizons mission.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe farthest distance traveled by a postage stamp is a quite an impressive achievement, as it spans many planets and billions of miles. As stamps are synonymous with travel, it is fitting that one would travel within the solar system,\u201d Coggins said in a news release. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to be a part of this historic moment and welcome the United States Postal Service to the Guinness World Records family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FUSPS%2Fvideos%2F10154376624349810%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Guinness gang lists the stamp\u2019s&nbsp;record distance as&nbsp;3,262,723,132 miles, but each day adds to that figure. By 2019, when New Horizons is due to fly past another icy world on the solar system\u2019s edge, known as 2014 MU69, the odometer should be spinning past 4 billion miles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPluto: Not Yet Explored\u201d was part of a set of solar system stamps that were issued back in 1991, after the Voyager spacecraft had made their way past the orbit of Neptune. Because of the probes\u2019 trajectories, they couldn\u2019t get a look at Pluto&nbsp;\u2013 which was known as the ninth planet back then. The \u201cNot Yet Explored\u201d label fired up&nbsp;a group of planetary scientists known as the Pluto Underground. They began a years-long effort to get NASA to fund a mission to Pluto, which paid off at last with New Horizons.<\/p>\n<p>The New Horizons team put a copy of the 1991 stamp on the payload as a tribute to their labors, along with other mementos. \u201cI wanted to fly it as a sort of \u2018in your face\u2019 thing,\u201d Stern said back in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>This year, the U.S. Postal Service issued a batch of stamps celebrating the eight major planets of the solar system, plus a pair of stamps that show off the New Horizons spacecraft and its best view of Pluto. The label on the New Horizons stamp sheet? \u201cPluto&nbsp;\u2013 Explored!\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_219962\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-219962\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-219962\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/151230-pluto-630x749.jpg\" alt=\"Pluto stamps\" width=\"630\" height=\"749\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/151230-pluto-630x749.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/151230-pluto.jpg 722w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-219962\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The U.S. Postal Service\u2019s souvenir sheet of four stamps contains two new stamps appearing twice. The first stamp shows an artist\u2019s rendering of the New Horizons spacecraft and the second shows the spacecraft\u2019s enhanced color image of Pluto taken near closest approach. (Credit: Antonio Alcala \/ USPS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 1991 stamp that served as the rallying cry for the New Horizons Mission to Pluto is \u201cupdated\u201d by members of the New Horizons science team on July 14, 2015, the day the spacecraft reached Pluto. (Credit: Bill Ingalls \/ NASA) We\u2019ve known for years that a 1991 Pluto stamp included on NASA\u2019s New Horizons [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4809,2174,4810,5296],"class_list":["post-19311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nasa-new-horizons","tag-new-horizons","tag-new-horizons-probe","tag-stamps"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}