NASA gave new life to the New Horizons mission in 2015, which captured the first-ever close-up images of the dwarf planet Pluto.
According to the company, the goal is to reduce costs. space dot comthe distant spacecraft will now be a heliophysics mission to study the effects of the sun and solar wind at the edge of the solar system.
It is currently located in the Kuiper Belt, a disk-shaped region in the far outer solar system. It is thought to be inhabited by icy objects and comets, which are thought to be debris left over from the formation of the solar system.
unique position
“The New Horizons mission has a unique position in the solar system to answer important questions about the heliosphere and provide NASA and the scientific community with extraordinary opportunities for interdisciplinary science,” said NASA Science Mission in Washington. Director General Deputy Administrator Nicola Fox said.be press statement. “Authorities have determined it is best to extend New Horizons operations until the spacecraft exits the Kuiper Belt, which is expected in 2028-2029.”
After leaving the Kuiper belt, it enters the Oort cloud, a spherical shell surrounding the solar system. This will follow NASA’s 1970s Voyager 1 and 2 missions into interstellar space in the 2040s.
New Horizons is a nuclear-powered spacecraft that runs on energy from the heat of 24 pounds of plutonium-238. Originally he was only scheduled to last for 10 years, but his energy source should last him until around 2050. Roughly the size and shape of a grand piano, New Horizons travels 300,000 miles a year, faster than any other man-made object.
Beyond Pluto
Launched from Earth in 2006, the spacecraft photographed the largest Kuiper Belt object, the dwarf planet Pluto, in 2015, and also imaged the double-lobed KBO, later named Arrokoth, in 2019. The object is about 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) from Earth, making it the most distant object ever photographed.
If possible, we will also study other KBOs, for which nothing is known near their orbits, but in the future we would like to study their own solar satellites, similar to what Voyager 1 and 2 are currently doing. It is expected that emphasis will be placed on collecting physics data.
Recent research suggests that the solar system is a protective magnetic bubble with an undulating surface that fluctuates in tilt and size as the sun waxes and wanes during the 11-year solar cycle. I am. This is called the heliosphere, and the actual boundary is called the heliosphere. It’s a little-understood, but it’s what prevents cosmic rays from hitting Earth and mutating our DNA, wiping out all life.
Pluto revealed
Pluto, which is 40 times farther from the sun than Earth and is in an orbital dance with its slightly smaller moon Charon, was demoted to dwarf planet status by astronomers rather than planetary scientists in 2006.
Nine years later, New Horizons’ approach revealed Pluto to be geologically active and complex, with plains of nitrogen ice, mountain ranges, sand dunes, and ice volcanoes. It has been shown to have its own complex atmosphere, surface organic compounds, and crustal faults, the latter suggesting plate tectonics.
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