Pluto (Photo : REUTERS)
New Horizon (Photo : Reuters/NASA handouts)
The Pluto probe, dubbed New Horizons, have received a new potential destination after its successful fly by in July. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration recently announced that they are targeting the 2014 MU69, an object situated in the Kiuper Belt.
According to Forbes, the 2014 MU69 was discovered by astronomers in June 2014 using the Hubble Space Telescope. It is round one billion miles beyond Pluto
NASA chief of Science Mission Directorate John Grunsfeld said in a statement, Even as the New Horizons spacecraft speeds away from Pluto out into the Kuiper Belt, and the data from the exciting encounter with this new world is being streamed back to Earth, we are looking outward to the next destination for this intrepid explorer."
The New Horizons probe took nearly 10 years travelling three billion miles in order to reach Pluto and its moon, thus becoming the first spacecraft to take a closer look and study the dwarf planet. The probe, which costs around $720 million, will take around 16 months to transmit its collected data back to Earth.
The historic Pluto fly-by took place on July 14. From the information released by NASA, the New Horizons probe is still in mint working condition which prompted the agency to extend the spacecraft's use after successfully achieving its primary objective.
Despite the spacecraft in good working condition, NASA still requires the New Horizons team to submit an extension proposal which will be evaluated by an independent team of experts before the agency could approve the new mission.
The deadline for the mission extension proposal is set to 2016.
