{"id":13079,"date":"2022-04-16T09:21:06","date_gmt":"2022-04-16T09:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone"},"modified":"2022-04-16T10:27:50","modified_gmt":"2022-04-16T10:27:50","slug":"farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone","title":{"rendered":"Farther and Faster \u2013 NASA\u2019s New Horizons Spacecraft Heads for the \u2018Third Zone\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft will now venture into the mysterious Third Zone \u2013 also known as the Kuiper Belt \u2013 an icy asteroid region containing objects well outside of the orbit of the farthest planets.<\/p>\n

New Horizons, the fastest Earth-born spacecraft launched to date, running partly on nuclear energy, is well-known for the beautiful images of Pluto it transmitted back to Earth in July 2015.<\/p>\n

The fast-moving unmanned spacecraft became dormant for five months to save energy as it trekked to the Kuiper Belt. New Horizons was instrumental in renaming Pluto, which went from being the ninth planet to being a dwarf-planet, now known merely as \u201casteroid number 134340.<\/p>\n

New Horizons is also carrying some of Clyde Tombaugh\u2019s ashes, the scientist who discovered Pluto. Tombaugh\u2019s last living request was to have at least a small portion of his ashes sent into space, according to The Telegraph.<\/p>\n

On September 11, the spacecraft will come back to life to take its 16-month journey to MU69, a Kuiper-belt object that is thought to have been present at the birth of the solar system.<\/p>\n

This flyby is four billion miles from earth, making it mankind\u2019s most distant space journey to date. MU69\u2019s existence was not known when New Horizons first launched in January 2006. Recent Hubble Space Telescope images reveal that the Kuiper object looks like two space rocks stuck together.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s principal investigator for New Horizons, Alan Stern, said, \u201cWe are very likely going to a primordial binary in the Kuiper Belt, a four-billion-year-old relic of Solar System formation and an exotic building block of the small planets of the Kuiper Belt like Pluto.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may even be a swarm of smaller bodies left from the time when the planets in our solar system formed,\u201d Stern added.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew exploration awaits us,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt promises a scientific bonanza for the flyby.<\/p>\n

\u201d NASA\u2019s Director of Planetary Science Jim Green commented on the importance of the New Horizons mission as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe New Horizons mission to Pluto exceeded our expectations and even today the data from the spacecraft continue to surprise.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re excited to continue onward into the dark depths of the solar system to a science target that wasn\u2019t even discovered when the spacecraft launched,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft will now venture into the mysterious Third Zone \u2013 also known as the Kuiper Belt \u2013 an icy asteroid region containing objects well outside of the orbit of the farthest planets. New Horizons, the fastest Earth-born spacecraft launched to date, running partly on nuclear energy, is well-known for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":13078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,9,16],"tags":[233,246,245,1772],"class_list":["post-13079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-miscellaneous","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-third-zone"],"yoast_head":"\nFarther and Faster \u2013 NASA\u2019s New Horizons Spacecraft Heads for the \u2018Third Zone\u2019 - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft will now venture into the mysterious Third Zone \u2013 also known as the Kuiper Belt \u2013 an icy ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Farther and Faster \u2013 NASA\u2019s New Horizons Spacecraft Heads for the \u2018Third Zone\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft will now venture into the mysterious Third Zone \u2013 also known as the Kuiper Belt \u2013 an icy ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-04-16T09:21:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-04-16T10:27:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/04\/img-625a99fadcfb2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"405\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Farther and Faster \u2013 NASA\u2019s New Horizons Spacecraft Heads for the \u2018Third Zone\u2019\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-04-16T09:21:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-04-16T10:27:50+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone\"},\"wordCount\":401,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/04\/img-625a99fadcfb2.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\",\"Third Zone\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"miscellaneous\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/farther-and-faster-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-heads-for-the-third-zone\",\"name\":\"Farther and Faster \u2013 NASA\u2019s New Horizons Spacecraft Heads for the \u2018Third Zone\u2019 - 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