In the world of astronomy, Pluto was always a
huge subject of debate — is it a planet, or is it not a planet?
The tiny world at the edge of the solar system, so far away from earth,
was shrouded in mystery, and we barely had a clue what Pluto even looked like!
But after a 9-year-long journey through space, NASA's New Horizons mission
made history by becoming the first ever probe to reach the small world of Pluto.
The stunning images it was able to capture of the planet have forever
changed the way we view Pluto and the surrounding Kuiper Belt.
Welcome to Factnomenal, and for today’s video we take a look at everything that NASA's New
Horizons mission was able to uncover about the spectacular world of Pluto,
and its unique satellites. ——————————————————————————————
A Tiny World
Once upon a time, when astronomers and scientists didn’t have modern telescopes to point at the sky,
Pluto was considered to be the ninth and most distant planet from the Sun.
Percival Lowell, an American astronomer, back in 1905,
actually caught the first hints of Pluto's existence from some odd
deviations that he observed in the orbits of neighboring planets Neptune and Uranus.
He suggested that another world's gravity could be responsible for this,
tugging at the two planets from beyond.
He did manage to predict its location in 1915,
but unfortunately never lived to see it actually be discovered.
It wasn’t until 1930, when Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell observatory in Flagstaff,
Arizona used predictions from Lowell and other astronomers to truly discover the little planet.
Named after the Roman god of the underworld - after being suggested by
11-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford, England - the name also pays homage
to Percival Lowell, with the first two letters of Pluto being his initials.
The Mission to Pluto
There had been many theories and predictions about Pluto following its discovery, but
no actual data or images as evidence to support them.
Astronomers and scientists used various methods to try and get a
glimpse of the planet for years, but to no avail.
It was simply too far away to observe properly.
But finally, NASA began work on a mission to get up close and personal with the new world.
A 700-million-dollar mission, to be exact.
On January 19th, 2006, a spacecraft called
the New Horizons Mission was launched at Cape Canaveral to study the neighboring planets.
Jupiter and Saturn were first on the list,
but the ultimate destination for NASA's New Horizons was... Pluto.
The journey itself was not an easy one. Despite having many hurdles along the way,
the New Horizons spacecraft first made a successful flyby of Jupiter and its Jovian moons,
sending back a plethora of heavenly images and data
that gave us more insight on the biggest planet of our solar system.
To date, some of the most important data from Jupiter,
IO, Europa, and Ganymede are all thanks to the New Horizons mission.
After its close encounter with the giant of our solar system - as well as many of its
moons - the New Horizon’s probe then headed straight for the Kuiper Belt.
After several course corrections and a spell in hibernation mode,
it took a total of 9 years for the spacecraft to reach its final destination.
Secrets of the Kuiper Belt
On July 14th, 2015, the New Horizons mission officially reached Pluto.
At this time it did a quick flyby of the planet, but was able to capture roughly
6.45 GB of readings with its camera, particle sniffers, and dust detectors.
This may not seem like a lot back here on earth,
perhaps taking an average of a few minutes to download the data nowadays,
but when you’re so far away in space, transferring data is a whole different ballgame.
Seeing as the spacecraft was 2.9 billion miles (or 4.8 billion kilometers) away from planet earth,
it took a whopping 16 months for the data to actually make its way back to us!
As it was doing so, the spacecraft continued its exploration of the
Kuiper Belt— the third region of the solar system as you move outward from the Sun.
This is where they discovered Pluto had made its home.
Pluto it turned out was not really a part of our 9-planet system,
but was - in fact - a massive Kuiper Belt Object, or KBO for short.
This mysterious belt wraps around the solar system between
20 AU to 50 AU out, with 1AU being equal to the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
The belt is completely filled with icy bodies called Kuiper Belt Objects,
and Pluto happens to be one of the largest ones there.
Data from the mission shows that there are an estimated 35,000
space rocks floating through the region.
And these aren’t just any space rocks, but are actually thought to be the remnants
left over from the formation of the solar system.
Studying these ice rocks would undoubtedly help us gain a much more comprehensive understanding
of the early days of formation, and help us to understand our own solar system better.
Before the New Horizons mission sent back data about the Belt,
the only way we had ever seen these floating ice bodies was in the form of comets. But what
we usually see of a comet is after they have already been warmed up and changed by the sun.
The mission gave us the opportunity to witness these objects in their natural habitat,
before moving on to discover more about Pluto.
Discoveries on Pluto
Despite being at the edge of the solar system, suspended in the Kuiper Belt,
literally out in the cold— Pluto proved to be an active and scientifically valuable world.
As the New Horizons spacecraft began its flybys of the planet, snapping up every possible image
and angle it could get, some astonishing discoveries were made about the planet.
Images sent back from the mission showed a heart— one of Pluto's most significant features.
New horizons observed on approach - and captured images in high resolution during its flyby - a
vast, a million square mile nitrogen glacier in the shape of a heart, called the Tombaugh Region.
On the left we have a region known as Sputnik Planitia, which literally forced
the dwarf planet to reorient itself in a way that its basin now faces its moon, Charon.
The stunning nitrogen glacier stretches out for about 600 miles along the left lobe of
the Tombaugh Region, and is currently the largest known glacier in the solar system.
The images and data showed vast flows of slow-moving ice,
showing that its mostly crater-free, and that means extremely young.
Perhaps one of the most exciting revelations that came from the mission
was the evidence of Water ice on the distant world.
Water ice is extremely rare and researchers were excited about
this find because it means that there definitely could be more water ice
underneath the surface. And wherever there is water… there is a possibility of life.
Besides that, Mountains as tall as the Rockies were also photographed there.
This, along with the surprising scarcity of craters,
suggest that the planet is indeed geologically active.
Pluto has other surprising features as well, such as dunes.
But these aren't like sand dunes found here on Earth;
Pluto's dunes are made from solid methane ice grains and are sculpted by the wind.
I should note here that within our solar system, dunes are rather rarer than you might think.
They're only found on Earth, Mars, Venus, Saturn's moon Titan, and something called Comet 67P.
Another image, captured by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (or
LORRI), showed that Pluto is also bright blue!
If you thought the little dwarf was a sad, cold little world, then you’d be absolutely wrong.
The images show that the planet's atmosphere is filled with hydrocarbon particles called
tholins, which scatter sunlight and create a blue hue around the planet.
The New Horizons mission also clarified that Pluto was in fact much bigger than previously
thought. It has a diameter of 1,473 miles, quite large enough to be considered a planet again!
The spacecraft of course didn’t stop there,
and even snapped some incredible images of Pluto’s moons.
Turns out, Pluto's Moon Charon is a wild, wild world.
Data sent back from the mission suggests that Charon may actually
have a liquid ocean hiding beneath its icy crust.
The four smaller moons: Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra were found to be spinning very rapidly,
unlike the other satellites in the solar system, all while keeping one side facing Pluto.
Up close With Arrokoth
After a successful flyby of Pluto, New Horizons flew to a meeting with another
Kuiper Belt Object —- the mysterious Arrokoth.
The strange lobe shaped object is actually the result of a merger of
two objects into one. It is undoubtedly the most primordial contact binary that we have explored.
The images, taken upon approach, showed that it bears an uncanny resemblance to an icy snow man.
This Kuiper Belt Object - nearly 4 billion miles away from earth - may
actually hold some key answers to other primordial objects in the Kuiper belt.
In 2019, the team studying the Kuiper Belt Object
finally announced that Arrokoth’s key features would be getting actual names of their own.
The names of the distinct features of the object were approved by the
international Astronomical Union, and followed the same theme of
the Arrokoth name, which means ‘sky’ in the Powhatan/Algonquin Native American language.
In the breathtaking close-up image of the object,
a near circular arc on the larger lobe of Arrokoth,
the neck, and a larger crater in the smaller lobe are the three features gaining new names.
The arc will be named Ka’an, from the Yucatec Mayan language, as it sort of resembles a snake.
The ‘neck’ region is being called ‘Akasa’ derived from ‘sky’ in Bengali,
and lastly the large crater is simply being named ‘sky’ from our own English language.
"After its flyby, the new horizons probe turned around and captured
several images of Arrokoth on its way out, as it continued to explore other objects in the Belt.
These images could actually be the last we ever see of Pluto or
Arrokoth until another spacecraft can make the trek.
Future of New Horizons
The Voyager spacecraft have proven that humankind’s drive for
searching out the unknown - and exploring the world's beyond - know no bounds.
The two legendary sister spacecraft have already entered interstellar space,
and have ushered us into a whole new world of possibilities.
But nothing is expected to last forever, and most especially not a man-made spacecraft,
no matter how spectacular it might be.
In the case of NASA's New Horizons Mission, it is expected to last another 16 ½ years.
Traveling around 311,000,000 miles (500 million kilometers) per year,
which is about equal to the distance from Earth to Jupiter, the team has
suggested that they might only be able to study one more region in space before time runs out.
However, many believe that, like the Voyager probes, New Horizons
might actually make it significantly past what scientists have predicted.
For now, the New Horizons spacecraft is going strong and is showing no
signs of stopping anytime soon. What the future holds for it, only time will tell.
As for our favorite planet Pluto and its moons, we have so much more to uncover. While
some may call it a dwarf planet, when it comes to the Kuiper Belt— Pluto is King.
——————————————————————————————
So what do you think?
Which New Horizons image was your favorite??
Let us know in the comments!
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