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New Horizons Trivia Questions

How much do you really know about New Horizons? Below are 8 true or false statements. Click each one to reveal the answer and explanation.

1.

New Horizons used a gravity assist from Jupiter to speed up its journey to Pluto.

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Easy
✓ TRUE

It swung past Jupiter in 2007, gaining a velocity boost that shaved about three years off its travel time.

2.

New Horizons flew past Pluto in 2015, giving us the first close-up images of the dwarf planet.

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Easy
✓ TRUE

It performed the historic flyby on July 14, 2015, capturing detailed photos of Pluto and its moons for the first time.

3.

After Pluto, New Horizons flew past a Kuiper Belt object named Arrokoth in 2019.

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Medium
✓ TRUE

It successfully encountered Arrokoth (formerly 2014 MU69) on January 1, 2019, making it the most distant flyby ever.

4.

New Horizons is powered by solar panels, just like most other deep-space probes.

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Medium
✗ FALSE

It uses a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) because sunlight is too weak in the outer solar system for solar panels.

5.

New Horizons carries a small container of Pluto's soil that it collected during its flyby.

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Medium
✗ FALSE

The spacecraft had no lander or sample-return capability; it only gathered data via remote sensing during its high-speed flyby.

6.

New Horizons discovered that Pluto has a ring system similar to Saturn's.

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Medium
✗ FALSE

No rings were found around Pluto; the probe did reveal mountains, glaciers, and a thin atmosphere, but no rings.

7.

New Horizons is currently the farthest human-made object from Earth, ahead of Voyager 1.

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Hard
✗ FALSE

Voyager 1 is much farther, having launched in 1977; New Horizons is still far behind in distance from Earth.

8.

New Horizons carries a memorial tribute to the discoverer of Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh.

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Hard
✓ TRUE

A small container with some of Tombaugh's ashes is onboard, honoring the astronomer who found Pluto in 1930.

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