On 14 July 2015, New Horizons made an epic journey through Pluto’s system and returned spectacular images showing an icy world with towering water-ice mountains and vast plains of frozen nitrogen. From concept to launch day – and multiple nearly cancelled attempts along the way – took a difficult 17 years. How does it work? […]
New Horizons Makes Its First Visit to Pluto Read More »
Stern and his team struggled for years to launch their mission, facing an intense race against time: only four years were available for designing, launching and reaching Jupiter for gravity assistance. New Horizons would likely make its first encounter with Pluto and Charon during its trek through the Kuiper Belt – an outer region of
New Horizons Spacecraft Reaches Pluto For First Close-Up Images of the Distant World Read More »
The Planetary Society battled hard for New Horizons mission’s successful launch to Pluto. When its flyby of this classic solar system planet and its four tiny moons Styx, Nix, Hydra and Kerberos took place in July 2015 it revolutionized our understanding of this classic world. Scientists are still processing the wealth of data New Horizons
New Horizons and Pluto Revealed Read More »
New Horizons spacecraft became the first to visit one of the Kuiper belt objects, an area in the outer Solar System where frozen objects reside, and thus revolutionized our understanding of Pluto and its satellites, among many others. The spacecraft comprises a central thrust tube and triangular structures on either side. It contains seven instruments
New Horizons Spacecraft Explores the Kuiper Belt Read More »
