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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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The Jovis Tholus volcano on Mars captured by the ExoMars orbiter.

Pictures from space! Our image of the day

By Space.com Staff published

The European ExoMars orbiter captured this image of the Jovis Tholus volcano on Mars, revealing abundant traces of past activity.

A mosaic image of Saturn

Saturn: Facts about the ringed planet

By Charles Q. Choi, Scott Dutfield published

Reference Learn about the physical characteristics of Saturn and its famous rings, what we know about Saturn’s moons and Saturn’s roots in Greek mythology.

The surface of Pluto’s icy Sputnik Planum — seen here in a photo captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its close flyby of the dwarf planet on July 14, 2015 — is covered with churning ice “cells” that are geologically young and turning over due to convection.

Pluto's bizarre polygons now have a science explanation

By Elizabeth Howell published

The icy process may be present on other worlds.

Asteroids like Bennu are made from rocky debris

Asteroids: Fun facts and information about these space rocks

By Charles Q. Choi, Ailsa Harvey published

REFERENCE Learn about the size, shape and composition of asteroids as well as their history, naming conventions, and plans to mine them in the future.

A color image of Pluto

Dwarf planet Pluto: Facts about the icy former planet

By Charles Q. Choi, Scott Dutfield published

Reference Learn about the discovery of dwarf planet Pluto, its fascinating orbit and atmosphere and the controversy surrounding its planetary status.

The solar system

The solar system: A guide to things orbiting our sun

By Charles Q. Choi, Nola Taylor Tillman, Scott Dutfield published

Reference Learn how our solar system formed, how it was discovered and the names of the planets, dwarf planets and regions of space that orbit our sun.

Artist's impression of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.

New Horizons: Exploring Pluto and Beyond

By Elizabeth Howell published

New Horizons was the first spacecraft to visit dwarf planet Pluto and Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth. The spacecraft is still actively exploring the solar system.

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) imaged by the TRAPPIST-South national telescope at the European Southern Observatory's (ESOs) La Silla Observatory on November 15, 2013.

Comets: Facts about the 'dirty snowballs' of space

By Charles Q. Choi, Daisy Dobrijevic published

Learn about the composition and orbit of comets, as well as the history of their discovery, famous comets and space missions to analyze them.

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 published

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 published

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 published

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 published

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 published

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 published

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 Tillman published

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 published

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 published

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 published

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 published

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 published

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