American aviation pioneer Wally Funk
© Blue Origin

After training for 60 years, Wally Funk finally arrived in space this summer. Once a trainee of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLAT’s) program run by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) physician back in 1961, Funk passed all the tests and training before the program ended. Although these women, later known as the Mercury 13, were not permitted to become astronauts, Funk never forgot her dream of going to space. She had a distinguished career as a pilot, logging thousands of miles or kilometers in the air and teaching thousands of other pilots, not staying on the ground for too long.

On July 20, 2021, Funk flew on the New Shepard rocket built by the company Blue Origin, founded by American businessman Jeff Bezos. She rode with Jeff Bezos, Bezos’s brother Mark, and 18-year-old physics student Oliver Daemen. The rocket rose more than 100 miles (61 kilometers) straight into the air to the boundary of space. The booster separated from the capsule and landed using its engines. The capsule floated back down to the ground on parachutes. The whole flight lasted about 10 minutes.

The American businessman Jeff Bezos poses with the other passengers on the first crewed flight into space of Blue Origin’s craft New Shepard: (left to right) Mark Bezos, American executive; Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin; Oliver Daemen, Dutch student; and Wally Funk, American aviation pioneer.
© Blue Origin

At age 82, Funk was at that time the oldest person to travel to space. She surpassed the American astronaut and senator John Glenn, who returned to space in 1998 at the age of 77 aboard the space shuttle. Wally Funk held the record for 85 days. Since then, Candian-born actor William Shatner, 90, traveled to space on Blue Origin’s second suborbital flight on October 13, 2021, claiming the record.

Mary Wallace Funk was born Feb. 1, 1939, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, near Santa Fe. She began her first flying lessons at the age of nine. Funk graduated first in her flying class at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, and earned her pilot’s license in 1958. Funk earned her Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education from Oklahoma State University. There, she joined the school aviation team, the Flying Aggies. In 1960, at the age of 21, she was named a flight instructor at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, becoming the first woman flight instructor at a U.S. military base.

After the FLAT’s program ended, Funk continued her career as a pilot and flight instructor. She became the first woman inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 1971. In 1974, she became the first woman air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, investigating plane crashes. NASA began accepting women as astronauts in 1978, and Funk applied four times to the agency for astronaut training. She was denied, despite her experience, because she did not have an engineering degree. Undeterred, Funk pursued opportunities for private space travel, purchasing a ticket for a future suborbital flight with space tourism company Virgin Galactic. Earlier this year, Bezos surprised Funk with a seat on Blue Origin’s inaugural crewed flight, fulfilling Funk’s lifelong dream.

The Lucy spacecraft flies past the Trojan asteroid 617 Patroclus and Menoetius in this artist’s rendering.
Credit: NASA Goddard

It’s not every day that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)  launches a new spacecraft. Their latest, named Lucy, was launched Oct. 16, 2021, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Its mission? Explore the Trojan asteroid belt near the orbit of Jupiter. Lucy doesn’t have a crew, but the craft is equipped with powerful telescopes and cameras to gather information about the mysterious asteroids.

Lucy won’t be taking a direct path to Jupiter’s orbit, however. The spacecraft will use a series of gravity assists to help move it closer to its target. In a gravity assist, a spacecraft uses momentum gained from swinging by a planet to adjust its path and fling it toward a target.

After spending a year orbiting the sun, Lucy will return to Earth’s orbit for its first gravity assist in October 2022. This assist will set it on a course it toward Mars. In 2024, a second gravity assist will send Lucy towards the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. On this orbit, Lucy’s telescopes and cameras will capture images of asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson. The probe should arrive at the Trojan asteroid belt by 2027.

Each of the asteroids in the Trojan belt is named after a different hero from the Greek epic the Iliad. The first Trojan Lucy will photograph is Eurybates in August 2027. Eurybates is unique because it has a smaller moon orbiting it, named Queta. Polymele will be photographed in September 2027, and Leucus and Orus will be photographed in April 2028 and November 2028, respectively. After that, Lucy will return to Earth for one more gravity assist. In 2033, Lucy will finish the mission by visiting the Trojan asteroids Patroclus and Menoetius. The spacecraft will remain in orbit around the asteroids, studying the asteroids for as long as it continues to function.

The Trojan asteroids were named after Greek myths, but what about Lucy? Usually, NASA uses acronyms for naming spacecraft. An acronym is a word that uses the first letter of each word in a phrase to create a new word, for example referring to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as NASA.  In Lucy’s case, however, they named the craft after a fossilized skeleton found in 1974, in Ethiopia. Lucy wasn’t exactly a human – she represented a species of hominin called Australopithecus Afarensis. Hominins are a group of living things that includes human beings and early humanlike ancestors.

The expedition that found the skeleton Lucy was led by the anthropologist Donald Johanson and his student Tom Gray. An anthropologist is a scientist who studies humans and their close relatives. They were looking for fossils, and on Nov. 24, 1974, they found one of the most significant fossils to date. With 40 percent of her recovered, Lucy represents one of the most complete skeletons ever found from her time, dating to about 3.18 million years ago. When the team returned to their camp the night they found the first fossils, they celebrated their finding by listening to music and partying. One of the songs on repeat that night was “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” a song by British rock band The Beatles. Pamela Alderman, a member of the team, gave the fossil hominid they found the nickname “Lucy” after the song. Just as Donald Johanson was the first to discover the fossil Lucy, the spacecraft Lucy will be the first to study asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson, named in the anthropologist’s honor.

February 26, 2020

In the waning days of February, Black History Month in the United States, today World Book looks back at the career of the African American mathematician and computer programmer Dorothy Vaughan. Vaughan was the first African American to hold a managerial position for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the agency that preceded the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Vaughan’s work at NACA and NASA helped break down gender and racial barriers in the sciences. In 2016, her story was among those told in the Hollywood feature film Hidden Figures.

Dorothy Vaughan helped pave the way for women and African Americans to excel in mathematics and science careers. Credit:NASA

Vaughan was born Dorothy Johnson on Sept. 20, 1910, in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1929, she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Wilberforce University in Ohio. In 1931, Johnson was hired as a mathematics teacher at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. There, she met Howard Vaughan, a hotel bellhop. Johnson and Vaughan were married in 1932.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked the American military base at Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II (1939-1945). Millions of American men left the workforce to fight in the war, and many jobs were left vacant. In an effort to fill these vacancies, NACA’s Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory began hiring women for positions that had previously been available only to men. Vaughan was hired in 1943. She was assigned to a racially segregated, all-black unit of women mathematicians called West Area Computing. In 1949, Vaughan was promoted to section head, making her NACA’s first black supervisor, and one of the agency’s few female supervisors. Under Vaughan’s supervision, the West Area Computing unit mathematically analyzed the aerodynamic properties of aircraft.

February is African American History Month in the United States. Credit: © African American History Month

When NACA transitioned to NASA in 1958, segregated facilities were outlawed. This marked the end of West Area Computing, and Vaughan was transferred to the new Analysis and Computation Division. There, she became an expert in FORTRAN (Formula Translation), an early high-level computer language. A high-level language is a computer programming language that allows the user to write programs that are independent of the computer’s hardware. As a FORTRAN programmer, Vaughan had an important role in the development of space vehicles. She also contributed to the Scout Launch Vehicle Program, which launched over 100 satellites and probes into outer space.

Vaughan retired from NASA in 1971. Her work at NACA and NASA helped pave the way for women and African Americans to excel in mathematics and science careers. She died on Nov. 10, 2008. The American author Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016) chronicles Vaughan’s life and career, along with those of other members of the West Area Computing unit. The American actress Octavia Spencer depicted Vaughan in the film based on the book.

The former NASA mathematician Katherine Goble Johnson died at age 101 on Feb. 24, 2020. Credit: NASA/LRC

Another prominent African American mathematician of West Area Computing, Katherine Goble Johnson, died at age 101 on Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. Read her Behind the Headlines feature from last year’s Women’s History Month here.

November 25, 2019

This month, scientists at the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released their latest findings from decoded transmissions sent from the space probe Voyager 2 in interstellar space (the space between the stars). About a year ago, Voyager 2 became the second spacecraft (following its twin, Voyager 1) to enter interstellar space, exiting the heliosphere, a vast, teardrop-shaped region of space containing electrically charged particles given off by the sun.

Voyager 2, seen here passing Neptune in 1989, entered interstellar space in late 2018. Credit: © Mark Garlick, Science Source

The sun and all the planets are inside the heliosphere. Scientists estimate that the nose (blunt end) of the heliosphere is about 9 billion to 15 billion miles (15 billion to 24 billion kilometers) from the sun. Voyager 1, launched in September 1977, crossed the boundary from heliosphere to interstellar space in 2012. The crossing was marked by a steady drop in temperature and an increase in the density of charged particles known as plasma. Voyager 1 also detected an abundance of cosmic rays (particles accelerated by exploding stars) in interstellar space and provided evidence that the heliosphere protects Earth and the other planets from much interstellar space radiation.

This artist’s depiction shows the approximate locations of the two Voyager spacecraft relative to the sun, the bright spot in the center, in the mid-2010′s. In 2012, Voyager 1, shown as the upper probe in the image, sailed beyond the heliopause and into interstellar space. Voyager 2, the lower probe in the image, crossed the heliopause in 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Voyager 2 was launched a month before Voyager 1 in August 1977. Slightly slower than its twin craft and following a different course, Voyager 2 reached the heliopause (the edge of the heliosphere) in November 2018. Voyager 2 also detected changes in temperature and plasma and cosmic ray density, but the heliosphere at Voyager 2′s crossing point appeared to be sharper and thinner. This could be explained by Voyager 2 crossing the heliopause at a different location or at a less angled trajectory or by crossing during a period of lower solar activity than that experienced by Voyager 1 in 2012. The sun goes through a roughly 11-year cycle of high and low activity, theoretically causing the heliosphere to expand and contract or thicken and thin. Both spacecraft found that particles from the sun are trickling through the somewhat porous heliopause into interstellar space. Voyager 2 also confirmed Voyager 1′s detection of similar magnetic fields on both sides of the distant boundary.

This artist’s impression shows Voyager 1 passing through the heliopause in 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Both Voyager space craft are powered by slowly decaying plutonium. In 1977, scientists did not know exactly how long the space probes would continue to operate, nor did they know if, when, or where they would reach interstellar space. Now that the probes are there, scientists hope to learn more about the distant realm before the Voyagers power down sometime in the next few years. Voyager 1 is currently more than 13.6 billion miles (22 billion kilometers) from the sun, and Voyager 2 is about 11.3 billion miles (18.2 billion kilometers) away. After they lose power, scientists expect both to continue sailing through space for billions of years.

Click to view larger image
The path of  Voyager 2 is shown in red. Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus in 1986, and Neptune in 1989. Credit: WORLD BOOK illustration by Ken Tiessen, Koralik Associates

October 23, 2019

Last week, on Friday, October 18, the United States astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir made history by performing the first spacewalk in which all the participants were women. Before then, all spacewalks had involved at least one man. That includes the first spacewalk by a woman, which was performed in July 1984 by the Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, who was accompanied by Vladimir Dzhanibekov. In October 1984, Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first U.S. woman astronaut to conduct a spacewalk (with the mission specialist David Leestma).

NASA astronaut Christina Koch. Credit: NASA

The National Space and Aeronautics Administration (NASA) did not intentionally plan the first all-woman spacewalk. Rather, it was the natural result of an increasing number of women astronauts in the space program. Last Friday, Koch and Meir worked outside the International Space Station (ISS) for more than seven hours, replacing a crucial battery charger. The batteries power the ISS during the night portions of its orbits, which occur about every 45 minutes.

NASA Astronaut Jessica Meir. Credit: NASA

NASA had planned for Koch and another U.S. woman astronaut, Anne McClain, to conduct a spacewalk in March. But NASA did not have two appropriately sized spacesuits, and McClain was replaced by a male astronaut who “fit the suit.” In the following months, NASA delivered more varied spacesuit pieces to the ISS to reduce the likelihood of future sizing conflicts.

Koch and Meir’s spacewalk represents an important move toward gender parity in the U.S. space program. In privately-funded tests conducted in the early 1960’s, several women passed the same rigorous physical examinations that the male Mercury astronauts had passed. But NASA had no interest in selecting female astronauts at the time. No women were selected for the Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo missions. It was not until 1983 that the first woman U.S. astronaut, Sally Ride, reached space.

NASA has made strides to correct the gender imbalance in recent years. The 2013 astronaut class that produced Koch and Meir was the first class to have as many women as men (four each). The space agency is working towards returning astronauts to the moon in 2024 through the new Artemis program. NASA stated that at least one woman will walk on the moon.

Koch and Meir have stellar resumes that compelled NASA to select them for the astronaut training program. Both had done scientific work in Antarctica. Koch is an electrical engineer and helped develop a scientific instrument on the Juno mission to Jupiter. Meir has a Ph.D. in marine biology and has studied how penguins and other animals conserve oxygen in extreme environments. She raised a group of bar-headed geese from hatchlings so they would be comfortable with her during experiments. Even the two women’s hobbies prepared them for the spacewalk. Koch is an avid rock climber, having developed the climbing and tether safety skills similar to those needed for working outside a spacecraft. Meir enjoys underwater diving, where conditions are somewhat similar to those experienced during a spacewalk.

July 19, 2019

On July 20, 1969, 50 years ago tomorrow, the United States astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did what had seemed impossible not that long before: they landed on the moon. Watched by millions of people over a live television broadcast worldwide, Armstrong and Aldrin’s lunar first was the crowning moment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Apollo space program.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin took this photo of Neil Armstrong working on a storage assembly on the lunar module, Eagle, on the surface of the moon in July 1969. Credit: NASA

In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed landing astronauts on the moon by the end of the decade. This goal seemed out of the realm of possibility at the time. The United States was trailing the Soviet Union in the space race, a period of intense competition between the two countries to achieve supremacy in space exploration. The Soviet Union had already launched the first satellite (Sputnik in October 1957) and the first person (cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in April 1961) into orbit around Earth. American efforts had been riddled with launch failures, and the greatest success at that time had been a brief suborbital flight (astronaut Alan Shepard spent a few minutes in space) shortly before Kennedy’s announcement. From the looks of things in 1961, if anyone was going to land on the moon before 1970, it would be a cosmonaut.

A NASA Saturn 5 rocket launches from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969, carrying the Apollo 11 astronauts who would land on the moon days later. Credit: NASA

NASA, however, accepted the challenge with intensity and enthusiasm. It wound down the initial Mercury space project and began the Gemini program. Gemini helped develop the technology and skills to travel to the moon. Astronauts were launched in pairs, and they practiced docking with other spacecraft—an important part of Apollo’s novel mission design. The astronauts also practiced more precise ocean landings, to gain skill for lunar touchdowns. Gemini ended in 1966 and was succeeded by Apollo.

The Apollo program started with disaster. In January 1967, a fire during a pre-launch test took the lives of astronauts Roger B. Chaffee, Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom, and Edward H. White II. After the accident, NASA engineers redoubled their focus on crew safety.

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stands on the surface of the moon in July 1969. Credit: NASA

After several crewed and uncrewed Apollo test flights, NASA was ready to land the first people on the moon. On July 16, 1969, a Saturn 5 rocket, the most powerful rocket ever built, launched from Kennedy Space Center carrying the three astronauts of Apollo 11. After three days in transit, the mission entered into orbit around the moon. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the surface in the lunar lander module, named Eagle. Fellow astronaut Michael Collins stayed aboard a command module orbiting the moon.

This photo taken during the Apollo 11 mission shows Earth rising above the surface of the moon. Credit: NASA

As the mission commander, Armstrong was the first person to leave the lunar module and set foot on the surface. Upon taking his first step onto the moon, he famously said: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” (The word “a” was lost in radio transmission.) Aldrin joined him on the surface about 20 minutes later. They explored the lunar surface for more than two hours, performing experiments, setting up scientific equipment, and collecting samples of the lunar surface. Then, they blasted off in the lunar module, reunited with Collins in orbit around the moon, and safely returned to Earth.

Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were greeted with honors and awards upon returning home, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the two highest civilian honors awarded by the U.S. government. (They were awarded the second highest honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, in 2011.) The lunar astronauts received huge parades in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. They were celebrated in their home towns as well as at state dinners around the world.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin stands next to a seismograph on the lunar surface in July 1969. The lunar module, Eagle, stands in the background. Credit: NASA

Armstrong never became fully comfortable with the fame associated with being the first person to walk on the moon, refusing most interview requests until his death in 2012. Aldrin, however, enjoyed the spotlight and continues to be a prominent spokesperson for the advancement of human space exploration. Collins would have likely been selected to finally walk on the moon as the commander of Apollo 17—the last moon mission. But he retired from NASA after Apollo 11, happy to have been a vital—albeit relatively invisible—part of the first moon mission.

After six successful moon landings, Apollo was cancelled and NASA turned its attention to the development of the space shuttle. Humans have not left Earth’s orbit since since Apollo 17 in December 1972. That could change soon, however, as the United States and many countries and private companies are seeking to return to the moon in the near future. The American spacecraft company SpaceX is developing a rocket and lander intended to orbit and land on the moon. Another company, Blue Origin, is also developing rockets and landers with the ultimate goal of building a permanent settlement on the moon.

May 20, 2019

What do you call an earthquake on Mars? A marsquake! For the first time, scientists working with the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) think they have detected an actual temblor on the red planet.

Scientists think they have detected marsquakes on Mars, the fourth planet from the sun. Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

At the end of 2018, NASA’s InSight probe deployed a specially-built seismometer called Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) to the surface of Mars. (InSight is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport. InSight launched from Earth in May 2018 and landed on Mars in late November.) On April 6, 2019, SEIS picked up faint vibrations that were not caused by wind or the movement of InSight’s robotic arm. The signal was faint, with a low-level magnitude between 1 and 2 on the Richter scale. On Earth, such a weak quake would go unnoticed. On Mars, however, InSight was there to feel it.

Mars is the third body on which humans have recorded seismic activity, after Earth and the moon. On Earth, quakes are caused by the bending and grinding of huge tectonic plates, which float on layers of soft rock and magma and hold the planet’s oceans and continents. Mars does not have tectonic plates. Marsquakes are likely caused by the shrinking of the planet’s interior, which itself is caused by the slow cooling of its core.

NASA’s InSight probe has been studying the surface of Mars since late November 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

While detecting marsquakes is exciting, readings from SEIS might also shed light on the structure of the red planet. Scientists have reason to think that Mars, like Earth, has an interior composed of a rocky outer crust, a soft mantle, a liquid outer core, and a solid inner core. But they do not know how thick each of the layers are. Seismic waves change direction slightly when passing through core layers. If scientists know the source of the seismic waves, they can get an idea of the kinds and sizes of layers the waves had to pass through to reach the seismometer. Scientists can then create a more accurate map of the Martian interior and gain insight into the structure of all rocky planets—including those in our solar system and those orbiting stars millions of light-years away.

InSight has many instruments in addition to SEIS. The probe also serves as the only weather station on another planet. Sensors track the brisk wind gusts, low pressures, and frigid temperatures of Elysium Planitia, a vast plain near the Martian equator. On May 11, the temperature climbed to -4 °F (-20 °C) during the day, but plummeted to -148 °F (-100 °C) during the Martian night. Wind speeds topped out at 32 miles (51 kilometers) per hour.

April 8, 2019

After nearly 15 years on the surface of Mars, the Opportunity rover died as it lived: studying its adopted home planet. The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) officially ended the rover’s mission in February 2019, months after the craft was silenced by a dust storm.

The NASA Mars rover Opportunity studied the red planet from January 2004 until the summer of 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell University, Maas Digital LLC

Opportunity and its twin vehicle, Spirit, together made up the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. They were launched in 2003 to study the history of water on the red planet. The golf-cart-sized rovers carried scientific instruments created by teams of scientists and engineers from the United States and Europe.

Spirit and Opportunity were each designed for just 90-day missions. But both continued to gather information on the surface of Mars without any major setbacks for more than five years. In early 2009, Spirit became permanently trapped in a bed of loose Martian soil, ending that rover’s exploring career. Finally accepting its loss, NASA officially ended Spirit’s mission in 2011.

Opportunity landed in January 2004 in Meridiani Planum, a broad plain on the surface of Mars. Planners chose the site because it was known to contain hematite. Hematite is an iron-bearing mineral. On Earth, hematite generally forms in the presence of water. In 2013, Opportunity detected certain clay minerals that form only in the presence of water. This discovery was proof that liquid water once existed on the surface of Mars. This finding was confirmed by other Mars missions, such as NASA’s larger Curiosity rover, sent to Mars in 2011. Opportunity went on to learn that the water was similar to bodies of water on Earth, allowing for the possibility of life on Mars.

Huge dust storms occasionally blanket the surface of Mars. A particularly intense storm occurred in mid-2018, causing NASA to lose contact with Opportunity. The dust blocked out the sun and covered the rover’s solar panels, making it impossible for Opportunity to keep its core systems warm. Even after the skies cleared, there was no response from the rover. The bitterly cold temperatures on Mars—about -80 °F (-60 °C) on average—can damage and destroy electronics.

The end of Opportunity is not the end of humankind’s robotic presence on Mars. Curiosity continues to roll along. InSight, a non-mobile lander also launched by NASA, is currently studying the interior structure of Mars. And in 2021, two new rovers will launch: NASA’s Mars 2020 rover and Rosalind Franklin, a rover developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia’s state space agency, Roscosmos. (Rosalind Franklin was a British chemist famous for her studies of molecules and crystals.) The new rovers will try to find out if Mars held life at some point in its distant past. Thanks to the hard work of Opportunity and the mission’s engineers and scientists, we know it is a possibility.

January 16, 2019

On January 1, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) probe New Horizons flew by a 21-mile- (34-kilometer-) long rock at the outer reaches of our solar system. The probe took the rock’s first “close-up” photos, revealing details of the snowman-shaped space object, called 2014 MU69 or “Ultima Thule.” The term Thule was used by ancient European cartographers to describe the farthest northern lands of Earth. Ultima Thule (farthermost Thule) once described areas beyond the known world. Ultima Thule, then, is a fitting name for the distant object: it is 4 billion miles (6.5 billion kilometers) from Earth.

The New Horizons spacecraft took this photo of Ultima Thule on Jan. 1, 2019, from a distance of some 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers). Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

New Horizons is the first spacecraft to study Pluto and the Kuiper belt, a band of icy bodies largely beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune. New Horizons flew past Pluto in July 2015, revealing a surprisingly varied and geologically active world. Despite its distance from the sun, Pluto has been molded and shaped by many of the same forces that created the eight planets of our solar system.

With the flyby of Ultima Thule, New Horizons became the first spacecraft to visit an object discovered after the spacecraft was launched. The craft blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in 2006. Astronomers discovered Ultima Thule in 2014.

This NASA illustration shows New Horizons encountering 2014 MU69–“Ultima Thule.” Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

What’s so special about Ultima Thule? It may look like just another space rock, but it is far different from the asteroids and comets found closer to the sun. The solar system’s planets and other inner objects have been transformed by the sun’s extreme heat, by catastrophic collisions, and by immense gravitational pressures. Ultima Thule and other Kuiper belt objects (KBO’s) are like frozen time capsules that show how things looked as the solar system was forming. The first grainy photographs of Ultima Thule show an object made up of two lobes that likely came together in a walking-speed “collision”—a rather serene birth in an otherwise violent universe.

New Horizons has completed its study of Ultima Thule, but NASA expects to learn more about the distant object over the next 20 months or so as information continues to trickle in. It takes a while for data to be transmitted across the immense distance to Earth. And this may not be the last distant flyby for New Horizons. NASA is searching for other space objects to visit before New Horizons runs out of power in the mid-2030’s.

December 26, 2018

On Dec. 26, 1968, 50 years ago today, United States astronauts of the Apollo 8 mission prepared to reenter Earth’s atmosphere after becoming the first humans to orbit the moon. Apollo 8 was part of the Apollo space program that eventually landed people on the moon. The program lasted from 1961 to 1975. It was conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Live telecasts by the Apollo 8 astronauts were shown around the world, including a famous Christmas Eve broadcast that, at that time, was the most watched television program in history.

The Apollo 8 crew–astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell Jr., and William A. Anders–prepare to board a van which will transfer them to the launch pad at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Dec. 21, 1968. The crew orbited the moon and returned safely to Earth on December 27. Credit: JSC/NASA

Apollo 8 launched on Dec. 21, 1968, with astronauts William Anders, Frank Borman, and James Lovell, Jr. It was the second piloted Apollo mission, following Apollo 7 that had tested equipment in low orbit two months earlier. After separating from the carrying Saturn V rocket, the Apollo 8 astronauts guided the command and service module, or CSM, through trans-lunar injection, a maneuver sending the spacecraft toward the moon. The CSM entered lunar orbit and then passed to the dark side of the moon. People on Earth held their breath as communications were lost—as expected—for several minutes. Contact then resumed and was lost and resumed again as the CSM orbited the moon 10 times over 20 hours.

Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders took this famous photograph–known as Earthrise–on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1968. The lunar surface can be seen in the foreground. Credit: NASA

The NASA telecasts took place just before, during, and after these orbits, and the astronauts took a series of remarkable photographs—including the famous “Earthrise” and other photos that showed humans what our planet looks like from space. On December 27, Apollo 8 returned to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near the recovery ship Yorktown, 147 hours after launch and precisely on time.

This official emblem of the Apollo 8 lunar orbit mission featured the names of the crew: Frank Borman, commander; James A. Lovell, Jr., command module pilot; and William A. Anders, lunar module pilot. Credit: NASA

Apollo 9 and 10 carried out further tests before Apollo 11 landed humans on the moon for the first time in July 1969. Five more Apollo missions landed astronauts safely on the moon through December 1972.