Here's What the New Horizons Trip Found Beyond Pluto

NASA's New Horizons mission beyond Pluto has been considered as one of the most significant space explorations in the past ten years, and is continuously yielding a wealth of information that will help unveil the mysteries of our cosmic origins.

As mentioned in our previous report, the Pluto flyby has already crossed into the Kuiper Belt approximately three billion miles away from the sun and is being geared up to extend its mission into the fringes of the solar system.

Recently, scientists on earth received an image of a 90-mile-wide Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) named 1994 JR1 captured by the space probe using its on-board Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), Christian Science Monitor reported. The Kuiper Belt has triggered a great of interest among astronomers and physicists because many objects found within the said region in space appeared to have remained the same for eons since the beginning of the solar system- offering hints as to how things were during its formation.

The chief aim of the New Horizons mission is to acquire as much information as it can about KBOs. Following the discovery of 1994 JR1, the team overseeing the space exploration are setting their sights on a new target. Another distant and mysterious post-Pluto object are pushing NASA scientists to push the boundaries of their existing discovery to find out more about the mysterious KBO known as 2014 MU69.

The post-Pluto object is just right in New Horizon's path. It was reportedly formed in the Kuiper Belt where it orbits. This region in the solar system barely receives heat from the sun which allows it to preserve ancient samples that could help explain the birth of our sun-centered planetary system some 4.6 billion years ago. By carefully analyzing these samples, scientists will make a breakthrough into understanding the dynamics and the forces that underpin the birth of the solar system.

"The Kuiper Belt in general, and the cold classical objects especially, are the most primordial objects," said Simon Porter, a post-doctoral researcher on the New Horizons mission as quoted by Popular Science. "They were never pushed around by the giant planets; they're pretty much where they formed and haven't been disturbed except for occasionally bumping into each other."

For scientists involved in the New Horizons mission, a proposed post-Pluto flyby for 2014 MU69 is both a practical and economical mission to explore the peripherals of the solar system. The KBO exploration will only cost less fuel compared to other targets. Recent estimates put the tentative cost around $700 million.

"New Horizons was originally designed to fly beyond the Pluto system and explore additional Kuiper Belt objects," said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado as quoted by BABW News.

The spacecraft carries extra hydrazine fuel for a KBO flyby; its communications system is designed to work from far beyond Pluto; its power system is designed to operate for many more years; and its scientific instruments were designed to operate in light levels much lower than it will experience during the 2014 MU69 flyby."

With the massive positive PR the most recent Pluto flyby is getting, members of the New Horizons team are crossing their fingers to have their budget request for the new mission approved.