News Archive / Tagged: Alan Stern

• New Horizons team releases images of Pluto’s far side

  Laurel KornfeldOctober 30th, 2019

  More than four years after New Horizons' historic July 2015 Pluto flyby, mission scientists have released detailed images of Pluto's far side, which the spacecraft was able to image only in low resolution on approach and following departure.

• Scientists debate planet definition, status of Pluto

  Laurel KornfeldMay 5th, 2019

  Scientists Ron Ekers and Alan Stern debated the planet definition and the status of Pluto in an event sponsored by the Philosophical Society of Washington.

• Chasing New Horizons: An epic exploration to a strange new world

  Laurel KornfeldMay 9th, 2018

  Close to three years after the historic New Horizons Pluto flyby wowed the world, mission principal investigator Alan Stern and astrobiologist and mission science team member David Grinspoon tell the riveting story of a monumental exploration 26 years in the making in their new book Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto.

• New Horizons breaks Voyager 1’s record for most distant images from Earth

  Laurel KornfeldFebruary 10th, 2018

  NASA's New Horizons spacecraft broke yet another record by capturing the most distant images from Earth, photographing an open star cluster along with several dwarf planets, Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and centaurs with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).

• Seven co-investigators join New Horizons team

  Laurel KornfeldMarch 17th, 2017

  In anticipation of New Horizons' flyby of its second target – Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69 – on January 1, 2019, NASA and Principal Investigator Alan Stern have added seven new co-investigators to the mission team.

• Ten years later, IAU Pluto vote remains controversial

  Laurel KornfeldAugust 24th, 2016

  In the decade that has passed since the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) controversial vote that demoted Pluto from planet status, people around the world have seen what was once little more than a tiny dot transformed into a complex world via NASA's New Horizons mission.

• Enhanced color image shows Pluto’s rugged highlands; new textbook will discuss mission findings

  Laurel KornfeldJune 14th, 2016

  The latest image released by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft mission team centers on a dark region of rugged highlands known as Krun Macula, which borders the bottom of Sputnik Planum, the icy plain comprising the left side of Pluto's 'heart'.

• Strange fractures seen on Pluto’s surface; study considers feasibility of orbiter

  Laurel KornfeldApril 12th, 2016

  Yet another strange feature appears on Pluto's surface in the latest New Horizons data sent back to Earth, as several fractures that converge at a central point result in an image resembling a giant spider.

• Pluto may once have harbored liquid nitrogen lakes

  Laurel KornfeldMarch 29th, 2016

  NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has returned images of branching channels and a feature that appears to be a frozen lake suggesting that liquids may have once flowed on the surface of a much 'warmer' Pluto millions or billions of years ago when it had a higher atmospheric pressure than now.

• Alan Stern outlines New Horizons’ extended mission at Planetary Science Conference

  Michael ColeMarch 24th, 2016

  HOUSTON, Texas — Alan Stern, primary investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, laid out the future of the mission in an address to the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, on Monday, March 21.

• Science articles discuss wonders, complexity of Pluto system

  Laurel KornfeldMarch 22nd, 2016

  Five articles published in the March 18 issue of the journal Science present a comprehensive view of the Pluto system based on all data sent back by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft over the last eight months.

• New high-resolution images show ice flow on Pluto’s surface

  Laurel KornfeldJanuary 9th, 2016

  The first images released in 2016 of Pluto by NASA's New Horizons mission team show the direction of flowing ice on the dwarf planet's surface, along with terrain patterns that suggest thermal convection is taking place on the icy surface of the area known as Sputnik Planum.

• New insights into Pluto’s geology, composition, and haze presented at conference

  Laurel KornfeldDecember 21st, 2015

  Members of the New Horizons team discussed new details about Pluto's complex geological processes, varied composition, and layered hazes at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

• New Horizons’ images, animation show Pluto’s surface in stunning detail

  Laurel KornfeldDecember 6th, 2015

  More than four months after its July 14 encounter with Pluto, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has sent back the highest resolution images of the small world's surface featuring layered craters, icy plains, rugged badlands, cliffs, canyons, water ice crust, and icy mountains.

• First academic paper presents New Horizons Pluto findings: pits and troughs found on Tombaugh Reggio

  Laurel KornfeldOctober 17th, 2015

  NASA's New Horizons team has published an eight-page academic paper in the October 16 issue of the journal Science. In the paper, the team discusses the New Horizons spacecraft's diverse findings it had discovered when passing through the Pluto system during the vehicle's historic July 14, 2015, flyby.