An artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft as it visits Pluto in 2015. Instruments will map Pluto and its moons, providing detail not only on the surface of the dwarf planet, but also about its shape, which could reveal whether or not an ocean lies beneath the ice.
This artist's rendering depicts the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its moons in summer 2015.
An overhead view of the New Horizons spacecraft's path across Uranus' orbit.
New Horizons has undergone extensive testing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight center and arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
This montage of New Horizons images shows Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io, and were taken during the spacecraft's Jupiter flyby in early 2007.
NASA's New Horizons snapped this view of Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io in early January 2007.
KBO: Artist's impression of the New Horizons spacecraft meeting up with a Kuiper Belt object. The Sun is more than 4.1 billion miles (6.7 billion kilometers) away. Jupiter and Neptune are visible as orange and blue stars to the right of the Sun. Though KBOs would not be so visible at any one moment, they're shown here to illustrate the extensive disk of icy worlds beyond Neptune.
To be dispatched early 2006, the outward bound New Horizons spacecraft will throw new light on distant Pluto and its moon, Charon, as well as Kuiper Belt objects. Image
This amazing color portrait of Jupiter’s “Little Red Spot” (LRS) combines high-resolution images from the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken at 03:12 UT on February 27, 2007, with color images taken nearly simultaneously by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope.
This montage demonstrates New Horizons' ability to observe the same target in complementary ways using its diverse suite of instruments. The image was released on May 1, 2007.
This montage shows the best views of Jupiter's four large and diverse "Galilean" satellites as seen by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on the New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby of Jupiter in late February 2007. The image was released in May 1, 2007.
An artist's rendering of the New Horizon spacecraft.
Images taken by the New Horizons Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) of Jupiter’s night side showed lightning strikes. Each “strike” is probably the cumulative brightness of multiple strikes.
This image of Io eclipsed by Jupiter's shadow is a combination of several images taken by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) about 28 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter. The image was released on May 1, 2007.
A white arrow marks Pluto in this New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) picture taken Sept. 21, 2006, marking the spacecraft's first look at its target planet.
The first picture of the Jupiter from the New Horizon spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken Sept. 4, 2006, is a tantalizing promise of what's to come when New Horizons flies through the Jupiter system early next year.
On Aug. 29, 2006, the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) opened its launch cover door and took its first image in space, of Messier 7, a star cluster in our Milky Way galaxy. The image shows the center of Messier 7, which was catalogued by Charles Messier in 1764, and described by Ptolemy around 130 A.D. Stars to at least 12th magnitude are clearly visible, meaning LORRI's sensitivity and noise levels in space are consistent with its pre-launch calibrations on the ground. Directionally, north is at the top of the images, east is to the left.
Artist Dan Durda's concept for a U.S. postage stamp honoring the New Horizons mission to Pluto. The probe's team has launched an online petition to make the stamp a reality
NASA’s New Horizons probe sits atop its Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
