Searching ‘New Horizons’—NASA Spacecraft Encounters Neptune on its Way to Pluto
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Though a lot has changed in the view of once-planet Pluto since the launch of NASA's New Horizons in January of 2006, which has been on-course for the distant chunk of ice for nearly a decade, data received from the spacecraft earlier this month showed that New Horizons had traversed the planet Neptune's orbit and its famous moon Triton, in a record eight years and eight months. The news that broke yesterday, Aug. 25th arrived on the 25th anniversary of the historic encounter of NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft with Neptune that took place in 1989, when Earth had its first glimpse of the planet nearly 2.75 billion miles away.
"It's a cosmic coincidence that connects one of NASA's iconic past outer solar system explorers, with our next outer solar system explorer" NASA's director of Planetary Science, Jim Green said. "Exactly 25 years ago at Neptune, Voyager 2 delivered our 'first' look at an unexplored planet. Now it will be New Horizons' turn to reveal the unexplored Pluto and its moons in stunning detail next summer on its way into the vast outer reaches of the solar system."
Projected to reach its destination by July 14, 2015 and set a record as the first probe to make a close encounter with Pluto, New Horizons may be bound for a has-been planet but is certainly making milestones on its way.
Scientists suggest that New Horizon's quick glimpse of Triton, Neptune's icy lunar body covered in cryovolcanoes, is much like what we can expect to see next year when the spacecraft reaches Pluto. Thought to be a Pluto-like object that fell into Neptune's strong orbit, Triton may just be the prequel to New Horizon's great achievement.
"There is a lot of speculation over whether Pluto will look like Triton, and how well they'll match up" former Voyager plasma-analysis team member Ralph McNutt says. "That's the great thing bout first-time encounters like this: we don't know exactly what we'll see, but we know from decades of experience in first-time exploration of new planets that we will be very surprised."
As the US leads planetary exploration deeper into space than any other nation has previously explored, spacecrafts like New Horizons will expand our knowledge of vastly unseen expanses of our solar system and beyond. It is thought that New Horizons will make several additional discoveries as it traverses through the Kuiper Belt, a disc-shaped region of icy objects in orbit past Neptune, and the realms of the outer solar system.
"Even this summer" McNutt says, "when we're still a year out and our cameras can only spot Pluto and its largest moon as dots, we know we're in for something incredible ahead."
