Tag Archive for New Horizons

In this image, two three-dimensional shapes (top) of Uranus are compared to the actual views of the planet from Hubble (bottom left) and New Horizon (bottom right). Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Samantha Hasler, MIT / Amy Simon, NASA-GSFC / New Horizons Planetary Science Theme Team / Joseph DePasquale, STScI / Joseph Olmsted, STScI.

Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons Focus on Uranus

Oct 10, 2024 by News Staff

In a new study, astronomers compared high-resolution images of Uranus from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to the more-distant view from NASA’s New...

This high-resolution image of Pluto was taken by New Horizons on July 14. Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Pluto’s Subsurface Ocean is 8% Denser than Seawater on Earth, Study Suggests

May 21, 2024 by News Staff

Planetary researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and the Lunar and Planetary Institute have used mathematical models and unprecedented high-resolution...

This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 49,700 miles (80,000 km). This view is projected from a point 1,118 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equator, looking northeast over the dark, cratered Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth expanse of icy plains called Sputnik Planum. Pluto’s North Pole is off the image to the left. This mosaic was produced with panchromatic images from the New Horizons LORRI camera, with color overlaid from the Ralph color mapper onboard New Horizons. Image credit: S.A. Stern et al.

Planetary Researchers Solve Mystery of How Pluto Got Its Pear-Shaped Feature

Apr 16, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Pluto’s surface is dominated by the huge, pear-shaped basin Sputnik Planitia. It appears to be of impact origin, but modeling has not yet explained its...

Beyond Neptune, there is a large disk of small objects, called the Kuiper Belt and beyond that is the Oort Cloud, home of the comets. This artwork shows a section of Kuiper Belt, crowded with the icy cores of potential comets. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Kuiper Belt May Be Much Larger than Previously Estimated

Feb 20, 2024 by News Staff

Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) are thought to be the dominant source of interplanetary dust particles in the outer Solar System due to both collisions between...

New Horizons mosaics of Arrokoth (left) and the same observations overlain with geologic mapping (right). Image credit: Stern et al., doi: 10.3847/PSJ/acf317.

Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth’s Large Mounds Have Common Origin, New Study Suggests

Oct 3, 2023 by News Staff

The 5-km-long mounds that dominate the appearance of the larger lobe of Kuiper Belt object (486958) Arrokoth are similar enough to suggest a common origin,...

Rhoden et al. revisited New Horizons data to explore the source of cryovolcanic flows and an obvious belt of fractures on Charon. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Charon’s Freezing Ocean Produced Huge Canyons on Its Surface, Modeling Study Suggests

Feb 8, 2023 by News Staff

When ocean-bearing moons begin to cool down, their oceans can freeze. As new ice accretes to the bottom of the existing ice shell, the added volume of...

The Wright Mons region on Pluto: darker/lower albedo, redder patches exist primarily on north-facing slopes but there are also more subtle differences in albedo and redness across the region; the region labeled A represents a redder unit transition to less red units at lower elevation. The longitude and latitude extents of the image are 160-182°E and 13-31°S. Image credit: Singer et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29056-3.

Enormous Cryovolcanoes Spotted on Pluto

Mar 29, 2022 by News Staff

Cryovolcanoes (ice volcanoes) are similar to normal volcanoes but instead of being formed from molten rock, they are made by frozen liquids like ammonia...

Three prominent features on Arrokoth now have official names. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Arrokoth’s Prominent Features Given Official Names

Feb 16, 2022 by News Staff

The Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth was the target of the January 1, 2019 flyby by NASA’s New Horizons mission. Three prominent features on Arrokoth now...

Sputnik Planum basin: this scene, which is about 250 miles (400 km) across, uses data from New Horizons’ Ralph/MVIC instrument. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Planetary Scientists Solve Mystery behind Mysterious Polygonal Structures on Pluto

Dec 15, 2021 by News Staff

University of Exeter’s Dr. Adrien Morison and colleagues have shown how vast ice forms have been shaped in Sputnik Planitia, a nitrogen-ice-filled basin...

This artist’s illustration shows NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in the outer Solar System. In the background lies the Sun and a glowing band representing Zodiacal Light, caused by sunlight reflecting off of dust. Image credit: Joe Olmsted / STScI.

New Horizons Detects Galactic Lyman-alpha Emissions

Nov 23, 2021 by News Staff

Hydrogen is the most abundant element. When a neutral hydrogen atom gets blasted with energy, its electron can be boosted to a larger orbit with a higher...

New model suggests the shape of the Sun’s bubble of influence, the heliosphere (seen in yellow), may be a deflated croissant shape, rather than the long-tailed comet shape suggested by other research. Image credit: Opher et al, doi: 10.1038/s41550-020-1036-0.

Solar System’s Heliosphere May Be Smaller and Rounder than Previously Thought

Aug 6, 2020 by News Staff

The heliosphere is a giant magnetic bubble that contains our Solar System, the solar wind and the solar magnetic field. Outside the heliosphere is the...

This high-resolution image of Pluto was taken by New Horizons on July 14. Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Newborn Pluto Was Hot and Had Subsurface Ocean: Study

Jun 23, 2020 by News Staff

Pluto is thought to possess a subsurface ocean beneath its thick ice shell. It has generally been assumed that the dwarf planet formed out of cold material...

This anaglyph image can be viewed with red-blue stereo glasses to reveal Proxima Centauri’s distance from its background. Image credit: Siding Spring node, Las Cumbres Observatory / NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Obtains Parallax Measurements for Two Nearby Stars

Jun 15, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers have long used a so-called parallax effect — how a star appears to shift against its background when seen from different locations —...

This composite image of Ultima Thule was compiled from data obtained by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on January 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Roman Tkachenko.

Three New Studies Provide More Complete Picture of Physical Nature of Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth

Feb 18, 2020 by News Staff

On January 1, 2019, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) Arrokoth — provisional designation 2014 MU69, previously...

This high-resolution image of Pluto was taken by New Horizons on July 14. Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Pluto’s ‘Nitrogen Heart’ Controls Its Atmospheric Circulation: Study

Feb 5, 2020 by News Staff

Pluto’s famous heart-shaped structure, named Tombaugh Regio, controls winds in the atmosphere of the dwarf planet and may give rise to features on its...

This schematic of the heliosphere shows the solar wind begins slowing at approximately 4 AU radial distance from the Sun and continues to slow as it moves toward the outer Solar System and picks up interstellar material. Current extrapolations reveal the termination shock may currently be closer than found by the Voyager spacecraft. However, increasing solar activity will soon expand the heliosphere and push the termination shock farther out, possibly to the 84-94 AU range encountered by the Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute / NASA / Adler Planetarium.

Solar Wind Slows in Outer Heliosphere, Data from New Horizons Confirm

Dec 4, 2019 by News Staff

As the solar wind — the supersonic stream of charged particles blown out by the Sun — moves farther from the Sun, it encounters an increasing...

This composite image of Ultima Thule was compiled from data obtained by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on January 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Roman Tkachenko.

Kuiper Belt Object Ultima Thule Has New Name: Arrokoth

Nov 13, 2019 by News Staff

Ultima Thule (also known as 2014 MU69), the Kuiper Belt Object that was the target of the January 1, 2019 flyby by NASA’s New Horizons mission, has been...

This composite image of Ultima Thule was compiled from data obtained by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on January 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Roman Tkachenko.

Ultima Thule: Surprises in Science Results from New Horizons Mission

May 21, 2019 by News Staff

After flying past the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft shifted course to Ultima Thule (also known as 2014 MU69), a much smaller...

This high-resolution image of Pluto was taken by New Horizons on July 14. Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Pluto’s Atmosphere Predicted to Collapse by 2030

Apr 25, 2019 by News Staff

The tenuous nitrogen atmosphere of the dwarf planet Pluto is predicted to ultimately collapse and freeze over. This high-resolution image of Pluto was...

This composite picture combines nine individual images taken with New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), each with an exposure time of 0.025 seconds, just 6 ½ minutes before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Ultima Thule. The image was taken at 12:26 a.m. EST (5:26 a.m. GMT) on January 1, 2019, when the spacecraft was 4,109 miles (6,628 km) from Ultima Thule and 4.1 billion miles (6.6 billion km) from Earth. The angle between the spacecraft, Ultima Thule and the Sun -- known as the ‘phase angle’ - was 33 degrees. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

Ultima Thule: Revealing First Primordial Planetesimal

Mar 20, 2019 by News Staff

Analyzing the data NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has been sending home since the flyby of the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule, the mission team is learning...

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