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News: The New Horizons Probe is important to the Pluto debate as it provided the first close-up scientific observations of Pluto after its reclassification as a dwarf planet.
About New Horizons Probe
- New Horizons Probe is a space probe launched as a part of NASA’s New Frontiers program.
- Launched by: It was launched by NASA in 2006.
- The first spacecraft was launched to explore Pluto and a second Kuiper Belt object – Arrokoth (2014 MU69).
- Objective: It aims to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its moons, and other objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region of the solar system that extends from about 30 AU, near the orbit of Neptune, to about 50 AU from the Sun.
- Instruments used
- It includes three optical instruments, two plasma instruments, a dust sensor and a radio science receiver.
- It also carried a cylindrical radioisotope thermoelectric generator that provided about 250 watts of power at launch .
- Together they will help scientists study Pluto’s geology, surface composition, temperature and atmosphere and its five moons.
- In 2024, New Horizons reached a distance 60 times greater than Earth’s distance from the Sun, making it twice as far from the Sun as Pluto was when the spacecraft flew in 2015.
- The images of Pluto sent by the spacecraft indicate that:
- It has nitrogen ice glaciers visually similar to Earth’s ice sheets.
- It also has big ice mountains measuring over 3,000 m in height.
- It has an atmosphere filled with layers of nitrogen haze.
- It has been found that it has an active geological activity like on Earth and Mars and has five moons.
- These discoveries renewed discussion about whether the existing definition adequately represents what a planet is and also if Pluto can be classified as planet.
