NASA’s New Horizons Mission to Pluto and Beyond

by Dr Henry Throop (Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, USA)

Tuesday 8 Sept 2015, 16:00 → 17:00 Asia/Kolkata

AG66 (TIFR)

After a nine-year journey though space, astronomers visited Pluto for the first time in July 2015, using a robotic NASA spacecraft called New Horizons. Despite being a cold and small icy body, New Horizons found Pluto’s surface to be young, dynamic, and varied. Planetary Scientist Dr. Henry Throop will tell the story of this NASA spacecraft mission, from its development and construction, through launch in 2006, to its successful encounter with Pluto, and plans for onward encounters with bodies in the distant Kuiper Belt.