Sonde spatiale

New Horizons

Distance à la Terre maintenant

…

calculée en direct à partir des données orbitales (NASA/JPL)

Distance from the Sun (Oct 2026)

≈ 66 AU (≈ 9.8 billion km)

Launched

January 19, 2006

Antenna

2.1 m (antenna)

Speed

≈ 13.6 km/s relative to the Sun

New Horizons is the only probe that has visited Pluto. On July 14, 2015 it flew past at about 12,500 km and revealed mountains of water ice and the heart-shaped region Sputnik Planitia. In 2007 it used Jupiter's gravity for a speed boost. On January 1, 2019 it flew by the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth (then nicknamed 'Ultima Thule'), the most distant world explored up close at that time. The probe keeps flying through the Kuiper Belt and still sends data. Aboard are some of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto. Unlike the Voyagers it is still inside the Solar System, but already about twice as far out as Neptune.

Données orbitales : NASA/JPL Horizons. Photos : Wikimedia Commons.