NASA showed how New Horizons station flew over Pluto

The New Horizons mission began in 2006. In 2015, the interplanetary station reached Pluto and was able to take high-resolution images. Another year was spent on transferring photos. Now the mission team has prepared on their basis a three-dimensional animated video of how the station flew over the dwarf planet.

New Horizons Pluto

Interplanetary space station New Horizons - prepared "space tourist" weighing 478 kg. It is equipped with two cameras, an ultraviolet spectrometer, a dust detector, a radio spectrometer and other devices necessary for scientific research. Based on enlarged photographs, the station’s route was reconstructed around Pluto in the summer of 2015.

The journey to Pluto and its satellite Charon took at the station for several years. This was achieved thanks to the gravitational maneuver next to Jupiter. The maximum rapprochement with Pluto was 12.5 thousand km. Over nine days of observation, New Horizons has accumulated 50 GB of data that contains unique scientific information about the dwarf planet.

The next target is an asteroid.

But the New Horizons mission does not end there. Now the station should reach the asteroid 2014 MU69 with a diameter of about 30-40 km in the Kuiper belt. This frozen piece of water, ammonia and methane (at least scientists suggest that it consists of these substances) will reveal the secret of the formation of the solar system.

New Horizons station is due to reach the asteroid in January 2019. On the way, she takes pictures of "local attractions" - asteroids and galaxies, which are also of interest to scientists. The station uses a radioisotope thermoelectric generator based on plutonium-238 as a battery, the charge of which should be enough until 2026.