I apologize for
being late with this good news though most who follow the New Horizons mission
have already heard it—specifically, we won! New Horizons will continue to be a
planetary mission while also doing heliophysics in the distant Kuiper Belt. Its
team will also continue to search for a third Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) for a
close flyby.
This victory belongs to the New Horizons team and to more than 7,000 people who signed the online petition to keep New Horizons a planetary mission with the crew it has had since before its 2006 launch.
According to petition organizer Hoyt Davidson, “The New Horizons team believes our petition and the cover letter to NASA’s leaders really was the straw that broke this loose.”
For more on where the mission goes from here, visit https://www.nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/nasas-new-horizons-to-continue-exploring-outer-solar-system/ .
When so many of us were fighting to keep the planetary mission, I suspected things would end this way but was afraid to be too hopeful.
While this win happened at the end of September, today, when we commemorate the Winter Solstice and look back at the past year, is an opportune time to celebrate this accomplishment.
For the latest on New Horizons, check out this blog post by principal investigator Alan Stern: https://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_12_19_2023&fbclid=IwAR1d2x8GTgzxBoNG_XSS_GkMcgDd-_8QCGuq9PttzPx-4G5-4KVBToZNUrE
At its core, the Winter Solstice is about hope, about the promise of new light and new life on the longest, darkest night of the year. In ancient times, people would come together to light bonfires they kept burning all night to “strengthen” the Sun and help it return.
How different is that from people all over the world coming together to fight for New Horizons? This, after all, is how the mission was created and launched after multiple cancellations and numerous obstacles. People came together for a project in which they believed and refused to give up on it.
We have always had the power to create change, to make the world a better place, to bring light to the darkness.
In these days of extreme weather and climate disasters, we need to find that power within and come together to save the habitability of our world and to explore beyond it. May we embrace and express that power in 2024 and beyond.
“Darkness does wane though winter’s chill
The season reigns
so bitter still
Fire’s bright seed
is born anew
Small spark of
light we sing to you!
Birthday of light we hail and cheer
Though short the
days still cold and drear
Solstice has come,
and with this morn
Our brother Sun
has been reborn!”
~Rich Mertes, fourth grade teacher, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LazGbmTcJHw
