Pluto: Exploration
NASA's New Horizons was the first and, so far, the only mission to Pluto. It was also the first mission to explore the solar system's recently discovered "third zone," the region beyond the giant planets called the Kuiper Belt.
Location
Kuiper Belt
Classification
Dwarf Planet
DISCOVERED
1930
MISSIONS
1 - New Horizons
New Horizons
active Mission
New Horizons was the first spacecraft to explore Pluto and its five moons up close and, later, made the first close exploration of a Kuiper Belt Object.
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Artist’s impression of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft encountering Arrokoth, a Kuiper Belt object that orbits one billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto, on New Year's Eve (or Jan. 1, 2019. UTC)
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Steve GribbenFull Image and Caption ›
