Having successfully flown past Pluto, New Horizons sets its target on an icy body in the Kuiper belt.
Pluto Rising
New Horizons is closing in on Pluto, and that means we’re finally getting some detailed images of the small world. With the appearance of new surface features comes a new batch of questions.
In Living Color
The New Horizons spacecraft has taken its first color image of Pluto and its moon Charon.
Past Pluto
New Horizons is a small spacecraft on its way to Pluto. It will make its closest approach next Summer. To get to Pluto in a reasonable time, the spacecraft is heading there at high speed. This means it will zip past Pluto and head out into the Kuiper belt. While Pluto is a worthy goal, it would be nice if New Horizons could observe other objects in the outer solar system. But given the high speed of the spacecraft, and the low mass of Pluto, there isn’t a good way to use the planet’s gravity to change direction towards a particular Kuiper belt object (KBO). Basically, New Horizons is on a straight trajectory out of the solar system. So instead astronomers have been searching for KBOs that are along the path of New Horizons, and they’ve found some candidates.
Guardian of the Galaxy
Many people have an emotional attachment to the planet, and feel somewhat offended that the mean astronomers have declared the tiny world to be not a planet. So what about Pluto? Well, it turns out we now know a great deal more about the planet than we did when you were little, and we’ll soon know even more.