Safekipedia

New Horizons

Adapted from Wikipedia · Explorer experience

An artist’s illustration of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flying by Pluto and its moon Charon, showing the excitement of space exploration.

New Horizons: A Space Adventure

New Horizons is a special spaceship made by NASA. It was launched in 2006 to explore faraway places in our solar system. This tiny but mighty probe traveled to Pluto, a small planet far from the Sun, in 2015. Before New Horizons, we knew very little about Pluto!

The spacecraft was built by smart people at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute. It was led by a scientist named Alan Stern. New Horizons is the fastest spaceship ever launched from Earth! It zoomed away at about 16 kilometers every second.

Before reaching Pluto, New Horizons flew by the planet Jupiter in 2007. It used Jupiter’s gravity to go even faster. This helped it get to Pluto three years earlier!

In July 2015, New Horizons flew very close to Pluto. It took the first detailed pictures of Pluto’s surface. We learned about its atmosphere and its moons, like Nix and Hydra. After Pluto, New Horizons visited another faraway object called 486958 Arrokoth in 2019. It continues to explore a place called the Kuiper belt, sending back amazing information about the outer edges of our solar system.

New Horizons carries special items on its journey. There is a CD with the names of over 400,000 people, a piece of a special airplane called SpaceShipOne, and even a tiny part of a scientist named Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930. These items travel through space as reminders of our curiosity and adventure!

Images

An artist's illustration showing NASA's New Horizons spacecraft as it flies by the planet Pluto, exploring our solar system.
NASA team members celebrate after receiving confirmation that the New Horizons spacecraft successfully completed its flyby of Pluto.
Technicians prepare the New Horizons spacecraft in a clean room for a media event. This image shows the spacecraft before its journey to explore space.
An illustration of space exploration technology, including the New Horizons spacecraft and an RTG unit, highlighting humanity's journey into space.
Photograph from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft showing a view of space or a celestial body.
Scientists preparing a special camera for NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which will explore the planet Pluto.
Scientists prepare the SWAP instrument for the New Horizons spacecraft at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 2005.
The Ralph telescope, an important instrument on NASA's New Horizons space probe that helps scientists study distant planets and objects in space.
An instrument from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft used to study space dust during its journey through the solar system.
A powerful rocket launching into space, carrying the New Horizons spacecraft on its journey to explore distant planets.
A NASA Atlas V rocket launches carrying the New Horizons spacecraft into space on its journey to Pluto.

Related articles

NASA
Pluto
Planet
Applied Physics Laboratory
Southwest Research Institute
Alan Stern

This article is a child-friendly adaptation of the Wikipedia article on New Horizons, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Images from Wikimedia Commons. Tap any image to view credits and license.