New Horizons: first flyby of Pluto
New Horizons: primer sobrevuelo de Plutón
- Date
- 14 de julio de 2015 · confidence high
- Place
- Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, United States
- Credited to
- NASA and APL (Alan Stern, principal investigator)
- Field
- Movement
What was discovered
After a nine-year journey the probe passed about 12,500 km from Pluto and showed a surprisingly young surface, with nitrogen glaciers, water-ice mountains and a hazy atmosphere. It then flew past Arrokoth in 2019.
Launched in January 2006, it used Jupiter for a gravity assist in 2007. It was the fastest probe launched from Earth up to that time.
What it led to
- mapping of Pluto and Charon
- discovery that Kuiper belt bodies can be geologically active
- data on Arrokoth as a primordial planetesimal