What does New Horizons's trip to Pluto mean for science?

Answer 1

New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program.[1]Engineered by the Johns Hopkins UniversityApplied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by S. Alan Stern,[2]the spacecraft was launched to study the Pluto system and, in its secondary mission, the Kuiper belt, performing a flyby of Pluto and one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs).[3][4][5][6][7]

On January 19, 2006, New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral directly into an Earth-and-solar-escape trajectory with a speed of about 16.26 kilometers per second (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph). After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, New Horizons proceeded to Jupiter, making its closest approach on February 28, 2007, at a distance of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). The Jupiter flyby provided a gravity assist that increased New Horizons‍ ' speed by 4 km/s (14,000 km/h; 9,000 mph). The encounter was also used as a general test of New Horizons‍ ' scientific capabilities, returning data about the planet's atmosphere, moons, and magnetosphere.

Most of the post-Jupiter voyage was spent in hibernation mode to preserve on-board systems, except for brief annual checkouts.[8]On December 6, 2014, New Horizons was brought back online for the Pluto encounter, and instrument check-out began.[9]On January 15, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft began its approach phase to Pluto.

On July 14, 2015 11:49 UTC (07:49 EDT), it flew 12,500 km (7,800 mi) above the surface of Pluto,[10][11]making it the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet.[6][12]Having completed its flyby of Pluto, New Horizons has maneuvered for a flyby of Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69,[13][14][15]expected to take place on January 1, 2019, when it is 43.4 AU from the Sun.[13][14]