Ever since mankind first left the atmosphere, it has been met with a constant craving to go further and further. From Apollo 11 and the moon landing, to the probe exploration of other planets, everything has led up to the New Horizons mission and its discoveries of Pluto.
An Idea was Born
The idea of a dedicated mission to Pluto first sprung about in the late 1980s. During this time, telescope observations of far-away stars going behind Pluto revealed that it had a thick methane atmosphere that was likely, very quickly evaporating into space. Because of the size of Pluto, astronomers were surprised that it had an atmosphere at all. This led several scientists to avidly work on the tiny planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caO7x9x_nTg
By the mid 90’s it was fairly clear who the Pluto enthusiasts were and who legitimately cared about it, so they set up a meeting and began talking about having a mission to Pluto. There were some difficulties regarding having an actual mission, however. NASA created several attempts at a mission to Pluto, but none of them gained any ground due to a lack of funding…
The Idea turns into Reality
In 2000, NASA finally announced that there was an opportunity to undergo a mission to Pluto. This was met with great excitement by everyone — especially those who met about it originally in the 90’s.
There were plenty of ideas about how to optimize the mission and to get great data from a flyby probe, but there was a seemingly never-ending list of things that needed to be done in preparation for the mission. The team had to decide what scientific questions they’d try to answer, what equipment they wanted to use, and how to effectively and efficiently steer and communicate with the probe over the decade and a half that it would take to reach its destination.
New Horizons began and a probe was sent to Pluto to take photographs and collect data for scientific study. New Horizons captured pictures and sent its data back to NASA on Wednesday, July 15th, 2015. Since then, scientists have already learned so much.
What Scientists have Learned from Pluto Already
One of the biggest questions that scientists hoped they would gain some insight into was Pluto’s strange atmosphere. It was truly a mystery how the small Pluto could hold its gaseous atmosphere for 4.5 billion years — the age of our solar system! Because of the low gravity, the atmosphere should have dissipated eons ago, but did not, and this has baffled scientists ever since. Currently, scientists think that the atmosphere condensed into a heavier state and settled on the surface, explaining how it is still there after so long.
The probe has also finally given us a clear image of what Pluto actually looks like. The photographs it took show an amazingly unique geographical surface, and all of the new information will hopefully lead scientists to learn more about our solar system and how it was formed.
