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New Horizons

Learn more about NASA's New Horizons mission, which performed history's first flyby of the Pluto system on July 14, 2015.

Related Topics: Interstellar Travel, NASA, Alien Planets

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Hayley Arceneaux enjoying views from the tailor-made cupola in the Dragon Crew capsule.

Pictures from space! Our image of the day

By Space.com Staff

Cancer survivor and civilian astronaut Hayley Arceneaux can be seen floating inside Dragon Crew's dome window

The yellow arrow shows the trajectory of New Horizons over the surface of Pluto.

NASA celebrates New Horizons' historic Pluto flyby in 2015 with awesome new videos

By Tereza Pultarova

NASA has released new visualisations of the dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon to commemorate the first-ever up close exploration of the distant worlds.

One of the first images taken by the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter during its first close pass at the sun in 2020.

Earth's sun: Facts about the sun's age, size and history

By Charles Q. Choi

Read about the history and future of Earth’s sun as well as fun facts about the sun’s age, size, temperature, and phenomena like solar flares.

Pluto's famous "heart," as seen by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its 2015 flyby of the dwarf planet.

NASA's New Horizons Pluto spacecraft is still exploring, 50 AU from the sun

By Mike Wall

New Horizons is about to reach some very rarefied space, but don't expect the NASA probe to rest on its considerable laurels.

Rendering of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which will reach 50 AU (astronomical units), or 50 times the distance between Earth and the sun, on Saturday, April 17, 2021, a mile marker surpassed by only four other robotic probes in history. To celebrate the milestone, New Horizons pointed its camera out toward the direction of Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft (marked with a yellow circle).

NASA's New Horizons probe reaches rare distance, looks out to farthest Voyager

By Robert Z. Pearlman

Fifteen years after launching and six years after becoming the first probe to fly by Pluto, NASA's New Horizons is reaching 50 AU, a marker that has been passed only by four other spacecraft.

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spaceliner captured this view of Earth during the vehicle's first trip to space, on Dec. 13, 2018.

New Horizons Pluto probe leader Alan Stern is going to space with Virgin Galactic

By Mike Wall

Alan Stern, who leads NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond, has been selected to fly aboard SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic's six-passenger suborbital space plane.

Mars at opposition

Mars Opposition 2020: How to See It and What to Expect

By Samantha Mathewson

Get ready to see the Red Planet up close this week: , offering the closest view of the planet until 2035.

Arrokoth

2014 MU69: Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored

By Nola Taylor Redd

New Horizons' historic flyby of the KBO 2014 MU69, also known as Arrokoth, has revealed incredible insights about the birth of the solar system.

Was Venus Alive? 'The Signs are Probably There'

The 10 weirdest facts about Venus

By Space.com Staff

From having a day longer than its year to its wind speeds faster than tornadoes, Venus is odd.

Pluto’s haze layer displays a blue color in this image obtained by the New Horizons spacecraft's Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC).

Pluto flyby photos: New Horizons mission leader Alan Stern reveals 10 of his favorite epic views

By Mike Wall

New Horizons' epic Pluto encounter took place five years ago. Celebrate the anniversary with a look at some of the probe's most dramatic and intriguing photos.

Pluto, as seen by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its historic flyby of the dwarf planet in July 2015.

Pluto revealed: 5 years ago, NASA's New Horizons gave us our first close look at this distant world

By Mike Wall

Five years ago today, we started to appreciate just how remarkable Pluto really is.

Images of the star Proxima Centauri captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft (left) and a ground-based telescope (right). Use a stereo viewer for these photos; if you don’t have a viewer, change your focus from the image by looking “through” it (and the screen) and into the distance. This creates the effect of a third image in the middle; try setting your focus on that third image.

'Looking at an alien sky': New Horizons probe sees shifted star positions (photos)

By Mike Wall

NASA's pioneering New Horizons spacecraft has traveled so far that its view of the cosmos is noticeably different than ours.

The uniform color and composition of Arrokoth’s surface shows the Kuiper Belt object formed from a small, uniform, cloud of material in the solar nebula, rather than a mishmash of matter from more separated parts of the nebula. The former supports the idea that Arrokoth formed in a local collapse of a cloud in the solar nebula.

Arrokoth unmasked: NASA probe's 'space snowman' encounter reveals how planetesimals are born

By Mike Wall

New Horizons' epic encounter with a small body in the far outer solar system is telling us a lot about how planets are born.

The most detailed image of Arrokoth, captured just minutes before New Horizons made its closest approach on Jan. 1, 2019.

One Year Ago, NASA's New Horizons Made the Most Distant Flyby in Space History

By Nola Taylor Redd

A year after New Horizons buzzed its second target, Arrokoth, a wealth of science has been revealed.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by the distant Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule (2014 MU69) on Jan. 1, 2019. The object, the most distant ever visited by a spacecraft, is now called Arrokoth.

Meet Arrokoth: Ultima Thule, the Most Distant Object Ever Explored, Has a New Name

By Mike Wall

Hopefully you weren't too attached to "2014 MU69," because the most distant object ever explored has a new name.

Pluto, as seen by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its historic flyby of the dwarf planet in July 2015.

NASA Eyes a Possible Return to Pluto, with a Longer Stay

By Mike Wall

NASA is thinking about going back to Pluto, this time to stay for a while.

new horizons spacecraft

Long After Historic Flybys, NASA's New Horizons Is Still Pioneering Science in the Kuiper Belt

By Meghan Bartels

New Horizons made an epic flyby of a Kuiper Belt object to ring in the New Year — but scientists need brand-new observations to truly understand that data.

This new Hubble Space Telescope view of Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the giant planet's trademark Great Red Spot, and a more intense color palette in the clouds swirling in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 observed Jupiter when the planet was 400 million miles (640 million kilometers) from Earth, when Jupiter was near "opposition," or almost directly opposite the sun in the sky.

Jupiter: Our Solar System's Largest Planet

By Charles Q. Choi

If Jupiter were the size of a basketball, Earth would be the size of a grape.

Uranus’ tilt essentially has the planet orbiting the Sun on its side, the axis of its spin is nearly pointing at the Sun.

Uranus: The Ringed Planet That Sits on its Side

By Charles Q. Choi

Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and was the first to be discovered.

This artist’s concept shows NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its 2015 encounter with Pluto and its moon, Charon.

New Horizons: Exploring Pluto and Beyond

By Elizabeth Howell

The New Horizons spacecraft reached the dwarf planet Pluto in July 2015.