New Horizons proved an outstanding discovery vehicle despite its modest nature, yielding many fascinating findings about Pluto and its moons: Alice was used to study Pluto’s atmosphere while LORRI captured images of its surface as well as three smaller moons named Styx, Nix, and Kerberos.
Now, scientists from New Horizons team and beyond are opening up Pluto’s data, although full interpretation may take years.
How long does it take to get to Pluto?
The fastest route to Pluto would be traveling at close to the speed of light; however, that would limit how much science could be accomplished because spacecraft would need more time decelerating afterward. Furthermore, reaching Pluto at such speeds requires expensive rockets with very large payload capacities.
New Horizons spacecraft took only 9.5 years to travel to Pluto using gravity assist from Jupiter – making this mission to outer solar system an unprecedented speedy accomplishment.
Astronomers eagerly anticipate seeing all the flyby data from New Horizons arrive back on Earth after its flyby of Pluto and Charon. High resolution images may even rival those from Hubble! But New Horizons won’t stop there: Quaoar and Sedna remain fascinating mysteries which scientists will send other spacecrafts towards over time.
How long does it take to get to Pluto’s orbit?
Due to Pluto’s great distance, energy-intensive travel requires considerable fuel efficiency for just reaching it, much less orbiting or landing there. Therefore, any mission must be highly resource efficient in order to reach both planet and moon in an acceptable amount of time.
So it was remarkable when, in 2015, New Horizons successfully reached Pluto despite using decade-old technology and following an approach calculated years before. Even more remarkable is that New Horizons will continue sending data back to Earth for well over a year after its flyby; scientists have even already seen some stunning photos.
Scientists have long advocated for an expanded Pluto exploration mission, yet its implementation remains dauntingly complex. A primary obstacle is fuel costs; an expedition requires enough of it to fuel both acceleration and deceleration processes simultaneously.
How long does it take to get to Pluto’s surface?
Light from the Sun takes approximately 5.5 hours to reach Pluto, which lies 30 to 49 astronomical units away and features an atmosphere comprised of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide – and radio waves sent from Earth reflect back off this thin atmosphere, giving clues as to its composition.
Pluto, known for its five known moons of Charon, Hydra, Nix, Styx and Kerberos. New Horizons detected evidence for an underground ocean of frozen water ice within Pluto’s core; furthermore, organic material has been detected on several of its moons’ icy surfaces.
Pluto is an enormous distance to travel, and any faster you travel means more fuel will need to be burned off during deceleration to achieve orbit around its planet. Therefore, scientists prefer sending spacecraft that can make this trip in relatively quick time to Pluto; Jupiter’s gravity allowed New Horizons mission to shorten it by four years.
How long does it take to get to Pluto’s atmosphere?
NASA’s New Horizons probe captured its first close-up images of Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015, after traveling for nine years. Since then, mission scientists have been carefully studying all of the data sent back home by New Horizons, uncovering more details about both Pluto and its satellites than previously imagined.
Alice instrument of the spacecraft identified absorption features in sunlight that suggest Pluto has an atmosphere composed mainly of nitrogen with trace amounts of methane and acetylene; furthermore, surface brightness variations revealed air flow over Pluto’s mountainous terrain.
Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) revealed that Pluto and Charon’s surfaces are much rougher than average, appearing to feature “bladed terrains” formed of methane-ice. Meanwhile, New Horizons’ Radio Science Experiment (REX) detected radio waves bending as they passed through Pluto’s atmospheric particles – providing scientists with valuable clues as to its composition and temperature.