The Nasa spacecraft that explored Pluto has adjusted course as its next target looms.
New Horizons fired its thrusters late on Wednesday way out in our solar system’s so-called Kuiper Belt, or Twilight Zone.
Just confirmed in New Horizons mission operations: spacecraft successfully completed its first course-correction on approach to its Jan. 1 flyby target in the Kuiper Belt! Details to come. pic.twitter.com/fYOzTl603f
— NASA New Horizons (@NASANewHorizons) October 4, 2018
That puts the spacecraft on track for a New Year’s Day flyby of a tiny, frigid world dubbed Ultima Thule.
The name comes from medieval maps and literature.
Lead scientist Alan Stern tweeted: “YEAH! Go Baby Go!”
YEAH! Go Baby Go! @NewHorizons2015 just reported in from the Kuiper Belt 4 billion (yeah— billion!) miles away: Engine burn SUCCESSFUL!! Perfect in fact! We’re right down the middle of the pike now for Ultima! Go New Horizons! pic.twitter.com/TA4UzJCwwZ
— Alan Stern (@AlanStern) October 4, 2018
New Horizons became the first spacecraft to visit Pluto in 2015.
Its next target is one billion miles beyond Pluto and a whopping four billion miles from us.
So 13 years after rocketing from Florida, New Horizons will break its own record for humanity’s most distant tour of a cosmic object.
