NASA's New Horizons Mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt

With its 2015 flyby and first up-close look at a new class of small icy planet, the New Horizons mission ushered in a new era of planetary geology for the Pluto system. A second flyby of the small Kuiper belt object Arrokoth at the start of 2019 did the same for the much smaller planetesimals at the edge of the solar system, leftovers from the era of planet formation. This talk will introduce the spacecraft, instruments, and mission profile and describe some of the scientific highlights.

Speaker: Dr. Will Grundy, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ

Attend in person or online