Blue Streak

 

A few days ago, we got just close enough to the Blue Streak to get a quick picture before she flashed past on her way to Pluto.

The Blue Streak is one of the Rocket Team's deep space probes that uses ions to push it through space.

Ions are atoms that have an electrical charge. They can be forced out the back of a probe at very high speed, making the probe go forward at high speed.

The Blue Streak's ion drive gives a gentle push, but it pushes for a long time - like months! Over that much time, it builds up a TON of speed.

When she zipped past us, we were ready with cameras to catch the ghostly blue trail of ionized xenon gas.

"Now I understand why it's named Blue Streak," Pip said. "I wonder how fast it's going?"

I checked the radar. "About 200,000 miles per hour."

"Wow!" Pip said. "Oh, that reminds me, how do you measure the speed of joy?"

"I don't know," I said.

"In smiles per hour!"


More info: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/fs21grc.html

If you ever spot the Blue Streak, tell me about it at

RamoneRocketeer -at- gmail -dot- com.