New Horizons finds evidence for 2nd Kuiper Belt

[Gefn]

New Horizons visited Pluto in 2015

Remember how exciting it was when the New Horizons spacecraft encountered Pluto? This craft – the fastest one ever sent outward from Earth – launched on January 19, 2006, passed the moon’s orbit in just 9 hours, and then spent 10 years crossing the 3-billion-mile distance to Pluto. It swept past Pluto in 2015, passing within about 7,750 miles (12,500 km) of the little world and discovering, among many other things, a large, young, heart-shaped region of ice on Pluto plus mountains made of water ice. In 2019, New Horizons swept past Arrokoth, which thereby became the farthest and most primitive object in our solar system ever to be visited by a spacecraft. On April 4, 2024, New Horizons chief scientist Alan Stern provided an update of the mission’s findings, as it continues to move outward. He said New Horizons has found evidence for a 2nd Kuiper Belt.He also said the New Horizons team is still hopeful that groundbased searches will reveal new Kuiper Belt Objects that the spacecraft might be able to explore. He reported:

https://earthsky.org/space/new-horizons-pluto-spacecraft-2nd-kuiper-belt/

[Smokin Joe]

Interesting! Thanks!