Know About the Unbelievable Journey of the Space Probe New Horizons to Pluto

On to new horizons After examining the Pluto system, the new horizon spacecraft flew onto the Kuiper belt, the farthest reaches of the cosmos.

New Horizons

The space probe New Horizons Never before had a space probe been sent to the outermost planet of our solar system, but this was to change with new horizons under the slogan "bringing light to frontier worlds."

Nasa, together with the non-profit research institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, constructed the research mission. The launch date was January 17, 2006, from the Cape Canaveral Rocket Base in Florida.

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An Atlas V launch vehicle served as the carrier. The main objectives of the mission are to explore the geological structure, atmosphere, and mapping of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. After the Pluto mission, New Horizons should continue to fly and study objects in the Kuiper belt.

In this field behind Neptune's orbit, there are dwarf planets, asteroids, and a strange object called Ultima Thule, or ARAKOTH.

Journey to Jupiter

New Horizons Journey to Jupiter Of course, whoever travels across the solar system has more to see than just Pluto. Of course, scientists will use the mission for further planetary flying visits. Firstly, some corrections had to be made and critical phases had to be overcome only after the probe had passed.

The probe's high-resolution camera was activated on September 4th, 2006, at a distance of 291 million kilometers from Earth, and it was able to take the first pin-sharp image of Jupiter from January to June 2007.

The research mission was devoted exclusively to the gas giant, and over 700 observations and measurements provided a massive amount of data about the largest planet in our solar system.

A special technique called gravitational support was developed to ensure that new horizons got new propulsion. At first, the probe was sucked in by the magnetic field of the gas giant and, at a critical point, was thrown away.

This effect ensured that the 500-kilogram heavy research station was accelerated by about 14,500 kilometers per hour. This enabled it to reach top speeds of up to 83,700 kilometers per hour and shortened its journey to Jupiter by several years.

The mission continues to Pluto and Cheron. Of course, New Horizons also looked at the other outer planets. It passed the orbit of Saturn on June 8, 2008, and on March 18, 2011, it flew past Uranus at a distance of 3.1 billion kilometers.

It then encountered Neptune on August 25th, 2014, and on April 15th, 2015, NASA was finally able to publish the first image of the actual target. The quality of the images was still somewhat blurred, but fascinating for the researchers was to see the dwarf planet in its real coloration.

The images of new horizons exceeded those of the Hubble space telescope many times over. The dwarf shows itself in bright ochre sand or gold tone from a distance. The surface seems like even new horizons came within 12 500 kilometers of Pluto's surface.

For the first time, it provided images of mountains, dunes, poles, and the thin atmosphere. People on earth were particularly enchanted by the pluto heart, which later turned out to be a glacier. For the first time, it was possible to see and examine details down to an accuracy of 60 kilometers. Suddenly, mountains with haze and fog were visible.

Contrast-enhanced true color images showed reddish-brown patches of Pluto's surface ice volcanoes and much more. Upon the frozen surface of Pluto, there could even be oceans of water.

What a sensation at the end of the solar system. The atmosphere is filled with methane as scientists had already suspected. It is cold on Pluto. On the surface, it is about negative 220 degrees celsius, and in the upper warmer layers of the atmosphere, about negative 170 degrees celsius.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are still completely baffled by the measured data. Never before has it been possible to study a planet of the ice dwarf class so precisely. To this day, they call Pluto a Wonderland for Science.

Pluto Moon's

Pluto's possibly bring back its planet status for a long time. Scientists argued whether this was a planet. Its orbit is too eccentric. It moves much more like a part of the Kuiper belt than in alignment with the sun. Shortly after Pluto's discovery, other dwarf planets were discovered in a vote on August 23, 2006.

By then, the international astronomical union, or IAU, decided to withdraw the status of the planet. By then, New Horizons was already on its way to Mars. Pluto's strange moons were discovered in 1978. Cheron, the only round pluto moon, is the only round pluto moon.

Credit to NASA/JPL-Caltech & https://commons.wikimedia.org/

The moons NYX, hydra, Kerberos, and sticks discovered in the 2000s are irregular rocks but orbit pluto-like moons. Sharon presents the researchers with further puzzles. After all, its diameter of 1208 kilometers is slightly more than half the diameter of pluto.

This is quite unusual for a moon. How the two large celestial bodies can orbit each other so closely and remain in their orbits was a mystery until now on July 14, 2015.

For the first time, direct comparisons with Pluto became possible. The composition is similar; both consist mainly of rock with a negative 220 degrees Celsius. It is similarly cold as on Pluto, but instead of frozen nitrogen and methane like on Pluto, there seems to be volatile water ice on the surface of Cheron surely.

A Sensational Find in the Pluto System

In the year 2006, one considered classifying Pluto and Cheron as double planets, but nothing came of it. Today, Pluto is officially an ice dwarf, and Cheron is a satellite.

Another striking feature is the almost complete absence of larger impact craters on Cheron. This speaks to the rather young age of the pluto companion. Researchers are still puzzling over how Charon was formed.

The most common theory so far assumes that Pluto collided with a similarly large dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt. One part could have merged into the mass of Pluto, and the other part formed the servant cheron.

This would not be unusual because there is another dwarf planet called Aerys in the vicinity. Eris is hardly smaller than Pluto and was once considered the tenth planet in the solar system. There are many more mini planets in the Kuiper belt than makimaki.

Haomia and Gongong are just a few of them. Researchers hope to gain more knowledge from the data collected, but it will be decades before the data collected by new horizons is transmitted to Earth and evaluated further in the Kuiper belt and strange objects.

Ultima Thule

Since the autumn of 2014, the official name of the rock has been Arakoth, which resembles two potatoes growing together in an unusual formation, in which the larger ultima and the smaller Thule are called at the end of the solar system.

Ultima The Thule-ARAKOTH formation orbits the sun as part of the Kuiper belt when new horizons start. Arakoth hadn't even been discovered yet. After the first sighting in spring 2014, the lump immediately fascinated researchers.

The distant object Ultima Thule, as seen by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on Jan. 1, 2019.Credit to NASA

The object is comparatively tiny at its longest point. ARAKOTH measures just 31.7 kilometers. What's strange is its clear orbit around the sun. First investigations with the Hubble space telescope came to an astonishing result. According to this, Arakoth would have hardly changed its orbit since the beginning of the solar system.

This would make it one of the most stable objects in the solar system. On January 1st, 2019, new horizons flew past the bright red ARAKOTH. By the time all the data reaches Earth, it will probably be at the end of 2020, making ARAKOTH the most earthly object ever photographed and studied by a probe at close range.

More Interesting Facts About New Horizons

New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever, covering the distance to the moon in only nine hours. It also pays tribute to the discoverer of Pluto in a very special way, consuming less power than two 100-watt bulbs.

This is not necessary because solar power would be unthinkable in these far-off solar regions. It also orients itself based on the position of the sun. New Horizons has fully lived up to its slogan to this day.

The probe brought light to a previously unknown region of our solar system. What's more, the probe is still in the Kuiper belt. New Horizons will continue to fly until it is either out of range or defective.