This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

New Horizons launched with a singular purpose: scan the ninth planet up close for the first time ever. Pluto was the ninth planet when New Horizons launched in 2006, merely information technology was merely a dwarf planet when the probe got in that location in 2022. It was still an incredible moment for astronomers around the world, many of which are still analyzing the data New Horizons sent back. The probe wasn't washed, though. NASA redirected New Horizons deeper into the Kuiper Belt, and now it has detected something fascinating at the edge of the solar system. Out past the planets, asteroids, and even the comets of the Oort Cloud, there's a wall of hydrogen.

Since New Horizons merely conducted a flyby of Pluto, it fabricated sense to continue on into the Kuiper Belt to await at other objects. NASA has decided on target for New Horizons, and information technology'due south on track to accomplish an object called MU69 in several months. On the manner there, New Horizons has been scanning space in the outer solar arrangement. This is a rare opportunity, afterward all. No spacecraft has been out this far since the Voyager probes. Those probes detected what we believed to be a wall of hydrogen effectually the solar organisation, and at present New Horizons has confirmation.

Using the spacecraft's Alice UV spectrometer NASA has taken several readings from the edge of the solar organisation. Past analyzing the change in the ultraviolet spectrum over time, scientists at present believe New Horizons has confirmed the early observations fabricated by Voyager i and 2. There'southward a gigantic wall of hydrogen out in that location.

new horizons

So, what is this wall? We call it "infinite," but infinite isn't completely empty. Even in betwixt stars there are some devious atoms and $.25 of dust. Clouds of neutral hydrogen atoms float through interstellar space, just the dominicus can affect how they're distributed. Our local star emits a continuous stream of charged particles, which we phone call the solar wind. This outward force expands into a "chimera" around the solar system. The neutral hydrogen near our solar system slows downwards when it hits the solar current of air, causing the atoms to build up into a "wall" structure.

The researchers are fairly confident in their assessment of the hydrogen wall, merely New Horizons will continue making occasional observations of the wall twice per year as information technology continues moving outward. There's all the same an outside chance the ultraviolet light is coming from a afar galaxy, just future observations volition help to ostend.

At present read: Unexpected, mysterious x-rays plant emanating from Pluto, Pluto Has Dunes Made of Ice Instead of Sand, and Scientists Say Some Ultrahot Exoplanets Take Star-Like Atmospheres