{"id":372177,"date":"2026-09-19T16:41:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T11:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=372177"},"modified":"2026-09-19T16:41:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T11:11:37","slug":"new-horizons-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/new-horizons-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"New Horizons Probe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content-box-green\">\n<p><b>News: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"red-h2-box\"><b>About New Horizons Probe<\/b><\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 351px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/astrobiology.nasa.gov\/uploads\/filer_public_thumbnails\/filer_public\/06\/37\/063700a3-fae4-44c4-bd30-6e6283944d11\/nh-payload.jpg__930x580_q85_crop_subsampling-2.jpg?resize=351%2C219&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"New Horizons Probe\" width=\"351\" height=\"219\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: BBC News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>New Horizons Probe<\/strong> is a <b> space probe <\/b>launched as a part of<b> NASA&#8217;s New Frontiers program.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Launched by:<\/strong> It was<\/span> launched by<b> NASA in 2006.<\/b><\/li>\n<li>The<strong> fi<\/strong><b>rst spacecraft <\/b>was launched to explore<b> Pluto and<\/b> a second Kuiper Belt object<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u2013 <strong>Arrokoth (2014 MU69).<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Objective: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It aims <\/span>to study the <b>dwarf planet Pluto, its moons, and other objects in the Kuiper Belt,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a <strong>region<\/strong> of the solar system that extends from about <strong>30 AU<\/strong>, near the orbit of Neptune, to about <strong>50 AU<\/strong> from the Sun.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Instruments used<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It includes<\/span><b> three optical instruments, two plasma instruments, a dust sensor<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and<\/span><b> a radio science receiver.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li>It also carried a <b>cylindrical radioisotope thermoelectric generator <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that provided about <strong>250 watts of power<\/strong> at launch .<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Together they will help scientists <\/span>study<b> Pluto\u2019s geology, surface composition, temperature and atmosphere <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span>its<b> five moons.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2024, New Horizons<\/span> reached a distance<b> 60 times greater than Earth\u2019s distance from the Sun<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, making it <strong>twice<\/strong> as far from the Sun as Pluto was when the spacecraft flew in 2015.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><strong>images of Pluto sent<\/strong> by the spacecraft indicate that<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has<\/span><b> nitrogen ice glaciers <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">visually <\/span><b>similar to Earth\u2019s ice sheets<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span>also has<b> big ice mountains <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">measuring<\/span><b> over 3,000 m in height.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has an<\/span><b> atmosphere filled with layers of nitrogen haze.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has been found that it has <\/span><b>an active geological activity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> like on Earth and Mars an<\/span><b>d has five moons.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>These discoveries<strong>\u00a0renewed discussion<\/strong> about<strong> whether the existing definition adequately represents what a planet is and also if Pluto can be classified as planet.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;s New Frontiers program. Launched by: It was launched by NASA&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/new-horizons-probe\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">New Horizons Probe<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10366,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,1738,12039],"tags":[11872,10504],"class_list":["post-372177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-science-and-technology-daily-factly-articles","category-knolls","tag-9pm-daily-factly","tag-down-to-earth","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}