New Horizons
Pluto garners
the spotlight
By Amy Thompson
Nine years ago, in 2006, NASA
launched the New Horizons spacecraft to the outer reaches of the
Solar System in order to study the
Pluto system.
New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched, and has traveled more than three billion miles to
reach its primary target: Pluto. The
flyby of the Pluto system on July 14
will complete our initial exploration of
the Solar System while opening the
door to an entirely new realm of mysterious small planets and planetary
building blocks in the Kuiper Belt.
Reaching the Kuiper Belt, or the
“third” zone of our Solar System — a
region beyond the inner, rocky planets and outer gas giants — has been
a priority for years, as it holds building
blocks of our Solar System that have
been stored in a deep freeze for billions of years.
Pluto, the largest known body in
the Kuiper Belt, offers an extensive
nitrogen atmosphere, complex
seasons, strangely distinct surface
markings, an ice-rock interior that
may harbor an ocean, five moons.
And that’s just what we know.
The flyby will also cap a
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