New Horizons: Anticipated Scientific Investigations at the Pluto System

TL;DR

The New Horizons mission aims to conduct comprehensive measurements of Pluto's surface, atmosphere, and environment to enhance understanding of its origin, surface processes, and atmospheric chemistry, extending knowledge of similar celestial bodies.

Contribution

This paper details the measurement objectives, instrumentation, and observation strategies for the New Horizons mission to Pluto, emphasizing its potential scientific impact.

Findings

Pluto's surface composition and topography will be characterized.

Atmospheric properties such as temperature and composition will be measured.

The mission will provide insights into volatile transport and planetary formation processes.

Abstract

The New Horizons spacecraft will achieve a wide range of measurement objectives at the Pluto system, including color and panchromatic maps, 1.25-2.50 micron spectral images for studying surface compositions, and measurements of Pluto's atmosphere (temperatures, composition, hazes, and the escape rate). Additional measurement objectives include topography, surface temperatures, and the solar wind interaction. The fulfillment of these measurement objectives will broaden our understanding of the Pluto system, such as the origin of the Pluto system, the processes operating on the surface, the volatile transport cycle, and the energetics and chemistry of the atmosphere. The mission, payload, and strawman observing sequences have been designed to acheive the NASA-specified measurement objectives and maximize the science return. The planned observations at the Pluto system will extend our knowledge of other objects formed by giant impact (such as the Earth-moon), other objects formed in the outer solar system (such as comets and other icy dwarf planets), other bodies with surfaces in vapor-pressure equilibrium (such as Triton and Mars), and other bodies with N2:CH4 atmospheres (such as Titan, Triton, and the early Earth).