Image courtesy: NASA/Dan Afzal/U.S. Postal Service
New Delhi: NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is currently administering a probe in and around Pluto and for those of you who are unaware, it is also carrying a 1991 “Pluto Not Yet Explored” postage stamp.
Yesterday, July 19, NASA proudly announced that the stamp in question has earned a Guinness Book of World Record honour for the farthest distance traveled by a postage stamp!
Jimmy Coggins, official adjudicator for Guinness World Records, during a presentation ceremony on July 19 in the Hall of Flags at U.S. Postal Service Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said, “Our mission is to make the amazing official,” as reported by NASA.
Well, it certainly seems like they have! As per NASA, the 29-cent “Pluto Not Yet Explored” stamp became a rallying cry for the New Horizons mission team, which affixed it on the spacecraft at Cape Canaveral, Florida, prior to launch on Jan. 19, 2006. The stamp hitched a ride of more than 3.2 billion miles to Pluto, reaching the dwarf planet on July 14, 2015, bringing humanity its first breathtaking close-ups of the mysterious world.
However, the stamp was cancelled last July when New Horizons flew past Pluto.
The “Pluto Not Yet Explored” stamp is now 274-million miles (441-million kilometers) beyond Pluto, in a quest of sorts, it seems, to break its own record.
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