For the past 17 years, New Horizons has traveled past our planets, flew-by Pluto, currently in the Kuiper Belt (KB), and could reach Interstellar space by 2040! This week at Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG), debates about New Horizons were conducted as Alan Stern, PI for New Horizons, proposed extending the mission so that more research could be done in relation to Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO). As the Decadal Survey originally stated New Horizons “Value increases as it observes more KBOs and investigates the diversity of their properties”. However, per a directive from NASA, New Horizons is shifting these next two years to focus its efforts in heliophysics. Regardless of its future, it will be exciting to see what new discoveries New Horizons make!
Let us hear your thoughts, and catch up on everything New Horizons has done in the past 17 years by clicking on the links below!
New Horizons: Exploring Pluto and Beyond
NASA celebrates New Horizons’ historic Pluto flyby in 2015 with awesome new videos
Twitter Notes of the OPAG Meeting
NASA may shift New Horizons Pluto probe to sun-studying mission
- Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
