Do we not have all the Pluto and Thule images yet?
The probe won't encounter Pluto again. It's on an escape trajectory out of the solar system. Which doesn't mean it's not useful, but it's not going to give you any more of your Pluto Pic fix.
Do we not have all the Pluto and Thule images yet?
The probe won't encounter Pluto again. It's on an escape trajectory out of the solar system. Which doesn't mean it's not useful, but it's not going to give you any more of your Pluto Pic fix.
Honestly, IMO, if it can be made to orbit the Kuiper Belt such that it could find other cool shit out there, that's what they ought to have it do. We already have two probes leaving the solar system so it doesn't make sense to waste New Horizons to do literally the same shit Voyager 1 and 2 have already done.
That's what the planetary scientists who were kicking up a shitstorm about it in the first place were saying anyway. I agree with them. I don't want to see NH wasted.
By orbit, do you mean it can be put into an orbit? It would probably have an incredibly elliptic orbit.
To be fair, most Kuiper Belt objects including Pluto have pretty elliptical orbits, so...
Could something like that actually be done? Let NH coast around the sun toward any nearby Kuiper Belt objects, maybe even find something new? Perhaps find that missing 10th (or 9th to the normies :P ) planet out there?
By the time it flies near something, is power generator will be dead do centuries. Also, even if it was immortal, NH can't discover objects, cause its optics aren't powerful enough.
c/space Rules