Passing Mars Orbit and Asteroid Flyby
On April 7, 2006 at 10:00 UTC, the spacecraft passed the orbit of Mars, moving at roughly 21 km/s away from the Sun at a solar distance of 243 million kilometers.
New Horizons made a distant flyby of the small asteroid 132524 APL (previously known by its provisional designation, 2002 JF56), at a distance of 101,867 km at 04:05 UTC on June 13, 2006. The best current estimate of the asteroid's diameter is approximately 2.3 kilometers, and the spectra obtained by New Horizons showed that APL is an S-type asteroid.
The spacecraft successfully tracked the asteroid over June 10–12, 2006. This allowed the mission team to test the spacecraft's ability to track rapidly moving objects. Images were obtained through the Ralph telescope.
Read more about this topic: New Horizons
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