The New Horizons spacecraft has been speeding away from Earth since it launched in 2006. Scientists using the Alice UV imaging spectrograph on board New Horizons, have been patiently but sporadically gathering data during those 15 years, but also waiting to get far enough away from the Sun to make a specific measurement: the brightness of the Lyman-alpha background of the Milky Way. Until now, this had never been measured accurately.
Continue reading “Once New Horizons was out Beyond Pluto, it Could Finally Measure the Brightness of the Milky Way”New Horizons is Now 50 Astronomical Units Away From the Sun
As the New Horizons spacecraft hurtles out towards interstellar space, it has now reached an historical milestone. On April 17, 2021, New Horizons passed 50 astronomical units, or 50 times Earth’s distance from the Sun. It is just the 5th spacecraft to reach that distance, joining the Voyagers 1 and 2 and the Pioneers 10 and 11.
Continue reading “New Horizons is Now 50 Astronomical Units Away From the Sun”Away From the Light Pollution of the Inner Solar System, New Horizons was Able to see how Dark the Universe Really is
Just how dark is the universe, anyway? It’s a pretty hard thing to measure when we’re sitting this close to the sun. But NASA’s New Horizons probe is so far away that the images it takes of the distant universe are able to deliver the most accurate measurement ever of the universe’s diffuse background light.
Continue reading “Away From the Light Pollution of the Inner Solar System, New Horizons was Able to see how Dark the Universe Really is”New Horizons Saw the Universe With Even Less Light Pollution than Hubble’s View
In July of 2015, NASA’s New Horizons probe made history when it became the first mission ever to conduct a close flyby of Pluto. This was followed by the spacecraft making the first-ever encounter with a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) – known as Arrokoth (aka. 2014 MU69) – on Dec.31st, 2018. In addition, its unique position in the outer Solar System has allowed astronomers to conduct rare and lucrative science operations.
This has included parallax measurements of Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359, the two closest stars to the Solar System. In addition, a team of astronomers led by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) used archival data from the probe’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) to conduct measurements of the Cosmic Optical Background (COB).
Continue reading “New Horizons Saw the Universe With Even Less Light Pollution than Hubble’s View”Pluto has Snowcapped Mountains, But Why?
We can thank NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft for opening our eyes up to Pluto’s complexity. On July 14th, 2015, the spacecraft came within 12,500 km (7,800 mi) of the dwarf planet. During the flyby, New Horizons was able to characterize Pluto’s atmosphere and its surface.
Among the things New Horizons saw was a region of snowcapped mountains.
Continue reading “Pluto has Snowcapped Mountains, But Why?”New Horizons is so Far From Earth That the Positions of the Stars Look a Little Different From its Perspective
In July of 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft made history when it became the first robotic explorer to conduct a flyby of Pluto. This was followed by another first, when the NASA mission conducted the first flyby of a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) on December 31st, 2018 – which has since been named Arrokoth. Now, on the edge of the Solar System, New Horizons is still yielding some groundbreaking views of the cosmos.
For example, we here on Earth are used to thinking that the positions of the stars are “fixed”. In a sense, they are, since their positions and motions are relatively uniform when seen from our perspective. But a recent experiment conducted by the New Horizons team shows how familiar stars like Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359 (two of the closest stars in our neighbors) look different when viewed from the edge of the Solar System.
Continue reading “New Horizons is so Far From Earth That the Positions of the Stars Look a Little Different From its Perspective”There Are Winds Blowing On Pluto, Driven by Frozen Nitrogen
Earth and Pluto don’t have much in common. Earth is a vibrant, living world, whereas Pluto is cold, distant and lifeless. But one thing they do have in common is nitrogen. Earth’s atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen, and Pluto’s primary atmospheric constituent is also nitrogen, although the exact percentage is unclear.
On Pluto, where the surface temperature is about 42 Kelvin (-231 Celsius) most of that nitrogen is frozen. A new study says that Pluto’s frozen nitrogen drives the planet’s winds, and shapes its feature surfaces.
Continue reading “There Are Winds Blowing On Pluto, Driven by Frozen Nitrogen”New Horizon’s Flyby Target 2014 MU69 Gets its Official Name: Arrokoth
On July 14th, 2015, the New Horizons made the first-ever flyby of Pluto. As if that wasn’t enough, the mission made history again with the flyby of the Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) 2014 MU69 on December 31st, 2018. This constituted the farthest encounter from Earth with a celestial object, which the team had nicknamed Ultima Thule – a mythical northern island beyond the borders of the known world in Medieval literature.
Unfortunately, this name has generated some controversy due to the fact that it is also the name white supremacists use to refer to a mythical homeland. So with the consent of the tribal elders and representatives of the Powhatan nations, the New Horizons’ team recommended a new name for the KBO. Henceforth, it will be known as “Arrokoth“, the word for “sky” in the Powhatan/Algonquian language.
Continue reading “New Horizon’s Flyby Target 2014 MU69 Gets its Official Name: Arrokoth”New Horizons Team Pieces Together the Best Images They Have of Pluto’s Far Side
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. For decades, not much detail was known about the erstwhile planet. We assumed it was a frozen, dormant world.
Continue reading “New Horizons Team Pieces Together the Best Images They Have of Pluto’s Far Side”A Bunch of New Names for Pluto’s Surface Features Were Just Approved
Pluto is getting some new names. In the past, prior to the New Horizons mission, there wasn’t much to name. But now that that spacecraft has flew past Pluto and observed it up close, there’s some features that need naming.
Now the IAU (International Astronomical Union) has approved a new set of names for 14 of the dwarf planet’s surface features.
Continue reading “A Bunch of New Names for Pluto’s Surface Features Were Just Approved”