New Horizons Analysis

As we know it, our Solar System consists of three zones, each with their own type of planet (Why Pluto? 2015). There’s the inner zone containing the four rocky, metallic planets, the outer zone containing the gas giants, and the Kuiper Belt (Why Pluto? 2015). Of these three, we know the least about the Kuiper Belt and the dwarf planets it contains (Why Pluto? 2015). New Horizons aimed to expand our understanding of Pluto, Charon, and one or more Kuiper Belt objects (Stern 2015). Specifically, New Horizons’ objectives included investigating the surface compositions, temperatures, geologies, and morphologies of Pluto and Charon, searching for an atmosphere around Charon and then characterizing both its and Pluto’s atmospheres and their escape

The seven instruments sent aboard New Horizons were Alice, Ralph, REX (radio science experiment), LORRI (long range reconnaissance imager), SWAP (solar wind around Pluto), PEPSSI (Pluto energetic particle spectrometer science investigation), and SDC (student dust counter). Alice and Ralph were spectrometers designed for different sides of the light spectrum. Useful, but not a new technology. Consisting of a small, sophisticated circuit board connected to New Horizons’ communication relay, REX was a great technological leap forward in atmospheric composition and temperature sensing that would not have been developed without the opportunity that New Horizons granted. Instead of sending radio signals from the spacecraft through a planet’s atmosphere and then to Earth, which is called downlink, REX uses the opposite method. As New Horizons passes Pluto, REX will receive radio signals from NASA’s most powerful Deep Space Network Antennae and store data that shows how much the waves bent around the planet, which gives information on the planet’s atmospheric pressure, temperature, and density. The main eye of New Horizons, LORRI, is essentially a big digital camera with better zoom. Specifically, it is a telescope with a twenty and four fifths of a centimeter (ten and one fifth of an inch) aperture which feeds light onto a charge-coupled device. What makes it

Amounting to four hundred and fifty thousand kilograms (five hundred tons) of nitrogen per hour, the atmospheric escape rate of Pluto exceeded expectations. Interacting with the solar wind, this expulsion of material is the source of Pluto’s comet-like ionized tail. Previously, scientists believed that Pluto had an atmosphere extending about two hundred and seventy kilometers (one hundred and seventy miles) above the surface (Gebhardt 2015). Pictures showing Pluto’s silhouette against the Sun showed us that Pluto’s atmosphere actually reaches closer to one thousand six hundred kilometers (one thousand miles) above the surface (Gebhardt 2015). Measurements made by REX showed that the atmospheric pressure of Pluto’s surface is close to a one hundred thousandth of Earth’s atmospheric pressure at sea level and its composition is almost entirely nitrogen. Observations by New Horizons show that Pluto is two thousand three hundred and seventy kilometers (one thousand four hundred and seventy-three miles) in diameter, about eighty kilometers wider than previous estimations indicated (Pluto 2015). Solidifying Pluto’s place as the largest Kuiper Belt object, this more accurate measurement of Pluto’s dimensions also led scientists to believe that Pluto consists of less rock and more ice than previously believed. Observing the high resolution images captured by LORRI, scientists noticed that Pluto’s surface was much smoother and