Pluto System After New Horizons

Pluto and its satellite system (the Pluto system) have been revealed to be worlds of enormous complexity that fantastically exceed preconceptions, and a mission to the Pluto system was achieved in the decades following Voyager. The volume "The Pluto System After New Horizons" seeks to become the benchmark for synthesizing our understanding of the Pluto system, with lead editor S. Alan Stern and co-editors Richard P. Binzel, William M. Grundy, Jeffrey M. Moore, and Leslie A. Young. Leading researchers from around the globe have spent the last five years assimilating Pluto system flyby data returned from New Horizons, forming an enduring foundation for ongoing study and understanding of the Pluto system and advancing insights into the nature of dwarf planets and Kuiper Belt objects.

Format: Hardback
Length: 688 pages
Publication date: 10 August 2021
Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Pluto, once considered distant, cold, dark, and seemingly unknowable, had long been regarded as the farthest and most unreachable frontier for solar system exploration. However, with the completion of Voyager's final planetary reconnaissance at Neptune in 1989, Pluto and its cohort in the Kuiper Belt emerged as the missing puzzle piece for completing the first reconnaissance of our solar system. In the decades that followed, a mission to the Pluto system became not only imagined but also achieved, culminating in the historic 2015 flyby by the New Horizons spacecraft. Pluto and its satellite system, including its largest moon, Charon, have been revealed to be worlds of enormous complexity that fantastically exceed preconceptions. The Pluto System After New Horizons: A New Era of Exploration seeks to become the benchmark for synthesizing our understanding of the Pluto system. The volume's lead editor is S. Alan Stern, who also serves as NASA's New Horizons Principal Investigator; co-editors Richard P. Binzel, William M. Grundy, Jeffrey M. Moore, and Leslie A. Young are all co-investigators on New Horizons. Leading researchers from around the globe have spent the last five years assimilating Pluto system flyby data returned from New Horizons. The chapters in this volume form an enduring foundation for ongoing study and understanding of the Pluto system. The volume also advances insights into the nature of dwarf planets and Kuiper Belt objects, providing a cornerstone for planning new missions that may return to the Pluto system and explore others of the myriad important worlds beyond Neptune.

Weight: 2134g
Dimension: 226 x 289 x 49 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780816540945