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NASA has extended the planetary science missions of eight of its spacecraft due to their scientific productivity and potential to deepen our knowledge.
Exploration Extended for 8 Planetary Science Missions
JPL's lucky peanuts are an unofficial tradition at big mission events.
What Are JPL's Lucky Peanuts?
A spacecraft has sent back pictures of the sky from so far away that some stars appear to be in different positions than we'd see from Earth.
NASA's New Horizons Conducts the First Interstellar Parallax Experiment
NASA’s New Horizons mission team has published the first profile of the farthest world ever explored, a planetary building block and Kuiper Belt object called 2014 MU69.
NASA's New Horizons Team Publishes First Kuiper Belt Flyby Science Results
The Southwest Research Institute will conduct the largest Hubble Space Telescope solar system program ever — a survey of the Kuiper Belt.
Hubble to Conduct Largest-Ever Survey of Kuiper Belt
The farthest object ever explored is slowly revealing its secrets, as scientists piece together the puzzles of the Kuiper Belt object NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past on New Year's Day, four billion miles from Earth.
A Prehistoric Puzzle in the Kuiper Belt
Meet the women leading two of humankind's two most distant space missions.
Women at the Helm
The highest resolution images offer about 110 feet (33 meters) per pixel.
New Horizons Spacecraft Returns Its Sharpest Views of Ultima Thule
The wonders – and mysteries – of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 continue to multiply as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft beams home new images.
New Horizons' Newest and Best-Yet View of Ultima Thule
Data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which explored Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule earlier this week, is yielding scientific discoveries daily.
New Discoveries from NASA's New Horizons
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule in the early hours of New Year's Day, ushering in the era of exploration from the enigmatic Kuiper Belt.
New Horizons Successfully Explores Ultima Thule
A schedule of events surrounding the New Horizons flyby of Kuiper Belt Object MU69.
New Horizons Flyby: Where to Watch
A message from Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of NASA's Science Missions Directorate, to Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
From the NASA Associate Administrator: Go New Horizons!
Closest approach takes place in the early morning hours of New Year's Day—12:33 a.m. EST—marking the most distant close exploration of worlds ever completed by humankind.
New Horizons Spacecraft Homing in on Kuiper Belt Target
Without Hubble's intriguing early images, there might have never been a mission to explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.
Hubble Paved the Way for the New Horizons Mission to Pluto and Ultima Thule
From its brightness and size, New Horizons team members have calculated Ultima's reflectivity, which is only about 10 percent, or about as dark as garden dirt. Beyond that, nothing else is known about it.
All About Ultima: New Horizons Flyby Target is Unlike Anything Explored in Space
With no apparent hazards in its way, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has been given a "go" to stay on its optimal path as it speeds closer to a Jan. 1 flyby of a Kuiper Belt object a billion miles beyond Pluto.
NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Takes the Inside Course to Ultima Thule
It's vast and mysterious, cold and dark. It's a place we've only just begun to explore. Here are 10 things to know about the Kuiper Belt.
10 Things to Know About the Kuiper Belt
On New Year's Day 2019, NASA's New Horizons will fly by a distant Kuiper Belt Object—and open a new chapter in how we define our place in the cosmos.
To Ultima and Beyond: Our Solar System's Small Worlds
Here’s a lineup of the various kinds of small bodies that orbit the Sun and sometimes impact planets and each other.
The Usual Suspects: a Rogues Gallery of Asteroids, Comets and Other Witnesses to History
NASA will host a live Science Chat at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 7, to discuss upcoming encounters of two of the agency’s planetary missions, New Horizons and OSIRIS-REx.
NASA Hosts Science Chat on Two Upcoming Out-of-this-World Encounters
Small worlds witnessed dramatic changes in our solar system that occurred long before humans. Here's how we're studying them.
Cosmic Detective Work: Why We Care About Space Rocks
The path through the solar system is a rocky road. Asteroids, comets, Kuiper Belt Objects—all kinds of small bodies of rock, metal and ice are in constant motion as they orbit the Sun. But what’s the difference between them? Why do these miniature worlds fascinate space explorers so much?
10 Things: What's That Space Rock?
A team of researchers have found a distant Kuiper Belt Object with an orbit that supports the theory of a distant, undiscovered large planet on the far edge of our solar system.
New Extremely Distant Solar System Object Found During Hunt for Planet X
NASA's New Horizons science team recently wrapped up a three-day rehearsal of the busiest days around the mission's Dec. 31- Jan. 1 flyby of a Kuiper Belt object orbiting a billion miles beyond Pluto.
New Horizons Team Rehearses for New Year's Flyby