2006 – The New Horizons probe is launched by NASA on the first mission to Pluto. The closest approach to Pluto occurred at 11:49 UTC on July 14, 2015 at a range of 7,750 miles (12,472 km) from the surface.
Birthdays
1747 – Johann Bode’s birthday, publicizer of the Titus-Bodelaw, a nearly geometric progression of the distances of the planets from the Sun.
1851 – Jacobus Kapteyn‘s Birthday, Bruce Medalist 1913, who studied the distribution and motion of half a million stars and created the first modern model of the size and structure of the Milky Way Galaxy.