Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy And Science

On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its historic flyby of Pluto, transforming our understanding of this distant world. Ten years later, we’re celebrating that iconic moment and the mission that made it possible. We begin with Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, who reflects on the mission’s origins, its most surprising discoveries, and what comes next as New Horizons continues its journey through the Kuiper Belt. Then we check in with Adeene Denton, NASA postdoctoral program fellow at the Southwest Research Institute, who just returned from the “Progress in Understanding the Pluto System: 10 Years After Flyby” conference held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Adeene shares highlights from the event, which brought together scientists to explore new results from New Horizons, JWST, Hubble, and ground-based observatories on Pluto, Charon, and the broader Kuiper Belt. Finally, Planetary Society Director of Govern