New Horizons remains healthy from its position deep in the Kuiper Belt, even as it speeds farther and farther from the Earth and Sun by about 300 million miles per year. The spacecraft is about 54 times farther from the Sun than Earth, which is about two billion miles farther out than our first science flyby target, Pluto, and about a billion miles farther out than Arrokoth, the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) New Horizons explored in 2019.

As planned, the spacecraft was put into hibernation mode on June 1, and will remain so until March 1, 2023. Hibernation saves fuel, wear and tear on spacecraft electronics; it also saves money, because less mission control and planning effort is needed to operate the spacecraft. But hibernation doesn't mean a pause in science data collection.

In fact, our Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (called SDC) and both the PEPSSI and SWAP charged-particle plasma spectrometers are measuring the distant environment around the clock. This is truly unique and highly valuable data for understanding the space weathering environment of KBOs and Kuiper Belt dwarf planets, and also for understanding how the far reaches of the Sun's heliosphere interface to the interstellar medium, or the environment beyond the Sun's cocoon of space.

As a result of our successful proposal to NASA at the start of this year, on Oct. 1, New Horizons begins its second extended mission. This mission has two major components, namely:

+ Transmitting the remaining data from the Arrokoth encounter back to Earth, and;

+ Collecting, studying and archiving unique planetary science, astrophysical and heliospheric data.

In addition, we'll be searching for new KBOs to study, or even to fly by if we can reach a target with our remaining fuel supply of about 11 kilograms (24 pounds). Those searches are continuing on two of the world's largest telescopes - the Japanese Subaru telescope in Hawaii and the U.S. Gemini South telescope in Chile - and have collected exquisite data that our team is analyzing.

The searches have been enhanced by some new machine learning data analysis tools, developed last year and refined this year, that increase the KBO detection rates considerably over what human scouring of the data has yielded in the past. Further boosting the Subaru effort is a more efficient sky filter that we provided for the telescope and will be pressed into service next year.

And by the time New Horizons emerges from hibernation at the beginning of March, we'll be deep into planning observations of new, much more distant KBOs, as well as a look back at distant Uranus and Neptune to observe how these two "ice giant" planets reflect sunlight - which will tell us more about what drives their internal energy balance.

We also plan to make the most extensive and sensitive studies of the cosmological visible light and ultraviolet light backgrounds ever made; such measurements constrain origin theories of the universe while shedding new light on the total number of galaxies in the universe.

Still next year, New Horizons will continue to make round-the-clock distant Kuiper Belt and heliosphere dust and charged particle and plasma spectrometer measurements, and will be creating the first all-sky ultraviolet maps of the heliosphere from distances where the obscuring fog of light from the solar system is largely behind us. And if that weren't enough, those and other ultraviolet maps New Horizons will collect will also be used to study clouds and other structures in the gas of the very local interstellar medium - that is, the space between the nearest stars to the Sun.

The unique aspect and common thread to all of these scientific observations is they can only be made by a spacecraft many billions of miles from the Sun, like New Horizons. The legendary Voyager spacecraft, though farther out than New Horizons, don't have the capabilities to conduct these observations. So among all the operating space missions, only New Horizons can collect this kind of data and yield these kinds of insights into our solar system, its distant environment, our part of the Milky Way galaxy and the universe beyond. The entire New Horizons team is very proud of that!

Before I close out this update, I want to say a special goodbye to Dr. Cathy Olkin, an incredibly valuable, hard-working and longtime member of the New Horizons team who has transitioned her career from planetary science to Earth studies, and to welcome to Dr. Pontus Brandt to our team. Over the next year, Pontus will be in training to take over the role of lead project scientist from our retiring project scientist, Dr. Hal Weaver.

While Pontus trains, Dr. Kelsi Singer, formerly one of our deputy project scientists, will serve as interim project scientist. Once Pontus assumes that role late in 2023, Kelsi will step up to become my deputy - the first New Horizons deputy principal investigator. A big salute and thanks from me to all five of these incredible scientists who have played such key roles in making New Horizons so successful!

Finally, I just want to thank the entire New Horizons science team for its incredible work over the past 18 months to step up our scientific data analysis and publication rate. The team's efforts led to a steep increase in scientific research results publications, from a recent average of about 25 per year, to more than 65 publications in 2021 alone!

As you can see, the New Horizons team has been hard at work making and planning for discoveries, with NASA's only spacecraft in both the Kuiper Belt and the outer heliosphere.

And that's my latest report to you. I'll write again once later this year. In the meantime, I hope you'll always keep exploring - just as we do!

Related Links
New Horizons
The million outer planets of a star called Sol

Thanks for being there; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5+ Billed Monthly		SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal

Uranus to begin reversing path across the night sky on Wednesday
Washington DC (UPI) Aug 24, 2021
As part of a cosmic phenomenon called retrograde motion, Uranus - the second-to-last planet in our solar system - will reverse its eastward course on Wednesday and begin moving west in the sky for a few months. Retrograde motion occurs as the Earth moves around the sun and the stellar views at night change little by little. The orbit, in turn, makes objects like planets in our solar system move horizontally across the sky throughout the year. All the outer planets of the solar system a ... read more

Read more from original source...