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new horizons

NASA'south New Horizons spacecraft made history a calendar month agone when it successfully completed its flyby of Pluto, merely the plucky piffling probe isn't washed yet. It's still heading deeper into the mysterious Kuiper Chugalug, and the New Horizons team is working on plans to explore it further. They've identified a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) that should be ideal for a flyby, then now they've got to become the plans finalized in time for the necessary course correction.

It's common for NASA missions to outlive their original objectives. For example, the principal mission of the Curiosity rover was only 687 World days, just it'southward well over 1100 days now. When the fantastic engineering of a infinite mission allows it to outlive the chief mission, the team has the chance to do more scientific discipline. Right from the start, information technology was causeless that New Horizons could visit a smaller KBOs after the Pluto flyby, and one called 2014 MU69 looks like the best candidate.

This KBO has been nicknamed "Potential Target ane" or just PT1 for short. It was chosen because its location would make information technology like shooting fish in a barrel to encounter without also much fuel expenditure. PT1 is also ane of a class of very ancient and pristine KBOs that could tell us a lot virtually the composition of the early solar organisation.

nh-path

As you lot can probably tell from the proper noun of 2014 MU69, it was discovered in 2014. And so none of the early planning of this mission took its location into account. The search for a suitable KBO target began in earnest in 2011 using big ground-based telescopes. However, NASA was disheartened to larn that none of the objects they were spotting were within the probe'due south range. Then Hubble turned its mirror toward the Kuiper Chugalug in summer 2014 and constitute five potential targets, i of which is 2014 MU69.

PT1 is certainly no dwarf planet, although it's still quite large compared to nearly objects. Information technology'due south roughly thirty miles (about 45 kilometers) across, only very dense. It'due south basically a huge comet or asteroid. Its composition is thought to exist like to that of Pluto and other dwarf planets.

The team needs to get all the plans in identify and approved for funding in 2016 to take the all-time run a risk of success. The longer they wait, the more fuel will be needed to line up with PT1. New Horizons was loaded with additional hydrazine fuel to enable the trip, but in one case it's gone, that's the end of the mission. The communication assortment was designed to operate far outside the orbit of Pluto as well. If the mission program is approved, New Horizons will reach 2014 MU69 in Jan 2019. In the meantime, New Horizons still has a mountain of Pluto data to trickle dorsum to Globe.