I have been looking forward to getting a real look at Pluto since I was a child. Maybe they might reclassify Pluto as a planet again when they get a closer look at it.Greg Bernhardt said:150 days left! What are your thoughts on this mission?
The New Horizons mission was launched in 2006 with the primary goal of conducting a flyby of Pluto and its moons to gather information and images for scientific study. This mission also aims to explore the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond the orbit of Neptune that contains many small, icy bodies.
The New Horizons spacecraft traveled for 9 and a half years before reaching Pluto in July 2015. It covered a distance of approximately 3 billion miles (4.8 billion kilometers) to reach its destination.
New Horizons is equipped with seven scientific instruments including cameras, spectrometers, and particle detectors. These instruments are used to gather data and images of Pluto and its moons, as well as the surrounding environment and other objects in the Kuiper Belt.
The New Horizons mission has provided us with the most detailed and accurate images and data of Pluto and its moons to date. It has revealed new information about the geology, atmosphere, and surface composition of these distant bodies. This mission has also helped us better understand the formation and evolution of the outer solar system.
After completing its primary mission in 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft is now continuing its journey towards the Kuiper Belt. It has successfully completed flybys of other Kuiper Belt objects, including the most distant object ever explored by a spacecraft, Ultima Thule. The spacecraft is expected to continue sending data and images back to Earth until at least the late 2030s.