NASA decided where to go fly a probe New Horizons – Virtual Poland

 
  The US space agency NASA, pointed object in the Kuiper belt as another New Horizons mission objective. The probe, which recently passed Pluto, has explored the object named 2014 MU69 circulating … one billion kilometers away.

 
 The selected object is one of two previously typed by the New Horizons mission team. Object Selection 2014 MU69 will still be verified before finally approving it as a new objective of the mission.

 
  Kuiper Belt is equivalent to the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Kuiper belt objects are located much further, beyond the orbit of Neptune, the last planet in the solar system. Pluto is a Kuiper belt object, but known there are several other large bodies in the area of ​​the solar system and many smaller ones.

 
 Finding the right order for the probe was not a simple matter. Observations using the largest ground-based telescopes allowed the detection of several tens of objects but none are within probe . Fortunately, the summer of 2014 years the Hubble Space Telescope discovered five objects that he identified the two as a match to the possibility of the New Horizons mission. Now you select one of them.

 
 Scientists estimate that the object 2014 MU69 has a 45 km diameter , and the mass corresponding to the mass of Pluto 1/10000. It may therefore be an example of the components from which they arose larger objects, such as Pluto.

 
 The mission of New Horizons completed the main purpose of his mission, which is successfully flew by Pluto, which took place on 14 July 2015. It was the first such maneuver in history. Now, the mission team has to write a new application for funding follow up mission to the Kuiper belt. This proposal will be evaluated in 2016 and then, NASA will decide whether it shall use the probe in this way.

 
 Such an early selection of the potential for scientists explain that if the proposal is implemented, , it requires a referral to the appropriate trajectory of the probe later this year. The probe will make four maneuvers correction in late October and early November. If all goes well and the mission is approved, the doleci object MU69 2014 on 1 January 2019 year. Any delay would result in higher consumption of precious fuel that was left in the tanks of the probe.
 

This is interesting: Amazing passage of the probe in space