The Ralph instrument
Exploring Pluto & its moons
NASA’s New Horizons mission is shedding light on some of the most distant worlds in our solar system. Over nearly 10 years, the spacecraft traveled more than 3 billion miles to come within 12,500 km (7,400 miles) of Pluto on July 14, 2015. The instruments onboard began collecting images and other data about the planet and its moons and will take up to 16 months to download all the data collected during the flyby.
At a speed of 14.7 km/sec (31,000 miles per hour), New Horizons is the first and fastest spacecraft to travel such a great distance to study Pluto, a dwarf planet with a complex system of moons never before seen up-close.