He purpose of NASA missions, despite having clear objectives at the beginning, may vary as the data accumulates and over the years and the different events that have happened beyond our planet. In the year 2006the North American space organization gave the starting signal to the New Horizons missionwith the objective of discover what is hidden in the confines Of the solar system. However, at present, changing startup plans may not have the go-ahead of everyone involved.
The New Horizons mission and a controversy between NASA scientists
Recently, thanks to the information published in Nature, we have learned of the existing discrepancies within the mission that is going through one of the most remote places in the Solar System. After having visited pluto and have traversed successfully the Kuiper beltthe ship of this mission explored a celestial body called Arrokothbut the lack of new objects to investigate has led those responsible for the mission to believe it necessary vary your purpose.
NASA: the impressive low-flying flight over Pluto with the best images of the passage of the New Horizons spacecraft
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Since it is considered that there are no reasons to continue using the New Horizons spacecraft as an explorer for cosmic objects, the POT intends to transform this mission into a heliophysical research. This means that the probe would spend the next few years of celestial surveillance on study space weather and other related phenomena with the same. Of course, as we mentioned before, this change of course does not seem to please all the scientists involved.
The probe It has a power source based on plutonium, which has the ability to make the ship can stay operationalat least, 25 more years exploring a unique area of our Solar System. Those who oppose the change in mission put on the table the large number of discoveries that have been made thanks to New Horizon, while the POT he affirms that he would be open to discuss a new course if the ship ran into an object really valuable for the field of astrophysics.
For the moment, the probe will continue to help the scientific communityeither in one way or another, as the two Voyagers have been doing for decades, which together with the New Horizon probe could help us better understand the emanations of charged particles from the Sun. Different points of view, but the same aim: increase our knowledge of the cosmos.
Founder Dwight D Eisenhower Foundation date 07-29-1958 Alternative name National Aeronautics and Space Administration Number of employees 18000