Nova, Pluto and Beyond
PBS Western Reserve (WNEO 45.1 / WEAO 49.1)
Wednesday, July 29, at 9 PM
Thursday, July 30, at 2 AM
The New Horizons spacecraft attempts to fly by a mysterious object known as Arrokoth*, believed to be a primordial building block of the solar system. Three years after taking the first spectacular photos of Pluto, New Horizons is four billion miles from Earth, trying to achieve the most distant flyby in NASA’s history. If successful, it will shed light on one of the least understood regions of our solar system: the Kuiper Belt. NOVA is embedded with the New Horizons mission team, following the action in real time as they uncover the secrets of what lies beyond Pluto.
*In November 2019, NASA officially renamed Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 “Arrokoth,” which means “sky” in the Powhatan/Algonquian language. The object's previous name, Ultima Thule, had once been used by the Nazi party.
