Pluto – Spaceflight Now

Five years after New Horizons flyby, scientists assess next mission to Pluto

July 14, 2020 Stephen Clark

Five years ago Tuesday, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft barreled by Pluto for a high-speed encounter that gave humanity its first close-up look at a distant world that puzzled astronomers and planetary scientists for nearly a century. Scientists are now planning how to go back.

New Horizons on track for historic New Year’s Day flyby of Ultima Thule

October 28, 2018 William Harwood

Thirteen years outbound from Earth and a billion miles past Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons probe is healthy and on course for a historic New Year’s Day flyby of its next target, a frozen remnant left over from the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, project scientists say.

New Horizons to continue mission of discovery with Kuiper Belt encounter

January 22, 2017 Stephen Clark

Scientists planning the the next phase of NASA’s New Horizons mission, a robotic craft that completed the first exploration of Pluto in 2015, are going into the flyby of a frozen, faraway city-sized clump of rock on New Year’s Day 2019 armed with little knowledge of the target lurking around 4 billion miles from Earth.

Study shows Pluto should be counted among solar system’s ocean worlds

November 24, 2016 Stephen Clark

Scientists believe they can explain how an ocean of water is lurking beneath an ice sheet inside Pluto’s prominent heart-shaped region, an iconic frozen landscape discovered during the New Horizons spacecraft’s flyby last year.

Final Pluto data transmission received from flyby probe

October 27, 2016 Stephen Clark

The last bits of data collected during NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft’s speedy flyby of Pluto last year are back on Earth, scientists said Thursday, marking the official end of the probe’s prime mission.

Water ice abounds in Pluto’s frigid bedrock

January 29, 2016 Stephen Clark

New maps produced from data gathered during the New Horizons spacecraft’s flyby of Pluto last year show surprisingly widespread water ice shaping mountains capped by methane snow and forming an underlying bedrock blanketing the distant world.

Pluto’s floating mountains, intriguing structures fascinate scientists

January 5, 2016 William Harwood

Nearly six months after NASA’s New Horizons probe zoomed past Pluto, just one quarter of the data stored on board has made its way back to waiting scientists, revealing a surprisingly varied terrain that includes glacial flows and steep mountains of frozen water floating in a “sea” of slush-like nitrogen ice.

Rugged swath of Pluto now resolved in color

December 10, 2015 Stephen Clark

A high-resolution scan of Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft published last week is now available in color, thanks to a new image release from NASA on Thursday showing craters, mountains and glaciers in a new light.

See the highest-resolution snapshots from July’s Pluto flyby

December 4, 2015 Stephen Clark

Scientists are marveling at some of the best views of Pluto recorded by the New Horizons spacecraft during its July 14 flyby of the unexplored icy dwarf in a set of photos released Friday showing Pluto’s icy, rugged topography in eye-popping detail.

‘Weird’ mountains on Pluto may be ice volcanoes

November 9, 2015 Stephen Clark

Maps of Pluto charted using data from NASA’s New Horizons mission appear to show two huge mountains scientists said Monday could be ice volcanoes, a discovery that would set the distant dwarf planet apart among its neighbors in the outer solar system.