Around 20 percent of Kuiper Belt objects have a moon. We think a lot of astronomers are going to be looking now for multiple satellite systems. |
Even though it's not as sensitive or as high resolution as the Hubble, we're able to look at the inner planets close to the sun and map wide regions of the sky very quickly. |
Exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is like conducting an archaeological dig into the history of the outer solar system, a place where we can peek into the ancient era of planetary formation. |
I ... was not comfortable with launching without backup power. I've been working on this for 17 years ... Two or three days doesn't mean a hill of beans. |
I don't believe we should classify planetary objects by location. We should use properties of the objects as a guide. |
I have July 14, 2015, emblazoned on my calendar. That's our arrival date at Pluto. We are now quite certain of that. |
I jokingly say now that New Horizons is the first mission to the nearest example of the last planet. |
I like to call this mission the Everest of planetary exploration. It's really fantastic. |
I will say that this has been our project mascot for a long time, this little ground-down pencil. And it represents perseverance to get this project under way, to get it built, to get it launched and now to get it to Pluto. |
I?m calling the discovery of the two new satellites the first scientific result of New Horizons. |
In a real sense, this is not just a 4 billion-mile journey, but also a journey 4 billion years back in time. |
It provides for us a window 41/2 billion years back in time to observe the formation conditions of giant planets. This is a little bit about rewriting the textbooks about the outer planets. |
It took us more years to get the mission beyond the Washington beltway than it will take to cross the entire Solar System. |
It used to be said that Pluto is a misfit. But now we know Earth is the misfit. This is the most populous class of planet in our solar system and we have never sent a mission to this class. |
It used to be that Pluto was a misfit. Now it turns out that Earth is the misfit. Most planets in the solar system look like Pluto, and not like the terrestrial planets. |