We are pleased to provide comprehensive multimedia resources to support your New Horizons reporting process. Please find and use the following resources in our digital media kit: articles, biographies, video, high-resolution photography for print and online purposes, and background information.
In addition to these resources, interviews with Planetary Society spokespeople are available upon request. To schedule an interview, or to be added to our media mailing list, please contact our Director of Communications Erin Greeson at erin.greeson@planetary.org or +1-626-793-5100.
All press materials are provided by The Planetary Society, unless otherwise credited.
Press Releases/Media Alerts
Bill Nye and The Planetary Society Celebrate New Horizons Pluto Flyby (July 13, 2015)
Nearly ten years after its launch, the New Horizons spacecraft will reach its closest encounter with Pluto on July 14, 2015. NASA and the world science community will celebrate the landmark at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at Johns Hopkins University, as well as at “PlutoPalooza” events around the world.
Flyby Schedule
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla
Three months ago, I posted an article explaining what to expect during the flyby. This is a revised version of the same post, with some errors corrected, the expected sizes of Nix and Hydra updated, and times of press briefings added.
Latest Articles
What's up in the solar system, June 2016 edition: Juno approaches Jupiter
Emily Lakdawalla • June 01, 2016
Your monthly roundup of the adventures of the 20+ robots exploring our solar system.
What's up in the solar system, May 2016 edition: Good news in cruise for Juno and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter
Emily Lakdawalla • May 03, 2016
May 2016 will be yet another month of fairly routine operations across the solar system -- if you can ever use the word "routine" to describe autonomous robots exploring other planets. ExoMars' cruise to Mars has started smoothly, and Juno is only two months away from Jupiter orbit insertion. Earthlings will witness a Mercury transit of the Sun on May 9.
30th anniversary images of Uranian moons
Emily Lakdawalla • February 02, 2016
January 24 was the 30th anniversary of the Voyager flyby of Uranus. Uranian moons have been on my mind ever since New Horizons sent us close-up images of Charon. On the occasion of the anniversary, Ted Stryk produced latest-and-greatest versions of the Voyager views of these worlds.
Mission History & Advocacy
Pushing Back the Frontier: How The Planetary Society Helped Send a Spacecraft to Pluto
Posted by Jason Davis
It took 16 years and five spacecraft designs to get a mission to Pluto. The Planetary Society was there through it all, always striving to help NASA push back our solar system's frontier.
New Horizons is a Triumph for Space Advocates
Posted by Casey Dreier
New Horizons—what will be NASA’s greatest success of 2015—was cancelled multiple times in its early life, and many times before that in its previous incarnations. A mission to Pluto was not inevitable, despite the overwhelming scientific and public excitement.
Staff Biographies
Casey Dreier
As Director of Space Policy, Casey leads the strategic planning and implementation of the Society's policy- and advocacy-related efforts. He works closely with the Society's leadership, the Board of Directors, and other policy experts to craft the organizational positions and generate ideas about the future of space exploration.
Emily Lakdawalla
Emily Lakdawalla is an internationally admired science communicator and educator, passionate about advancing public understanding of space and sharing the wonder of scientific discovery.
Bill Nye
CEO, Bill Nye. Yes, the Science Guy is now the Planetary Guy. Come along on a cosmic journey with Bill and learn more about Your Place In Space.High Resolution Images
Image usage policy: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. For additional publication permissions, please contact us. Click thumbnails to enlarge.
Bill Nye
F. Scott Schafer
Bill Nye
F. Scott Schafer
Bill Nye
F. Scott Schafer
Bill Nye
F. Scott Schafer
Recent Images
Image usage policy: As noted on each image page. For additional publication permissions, please contact us.
Zigzagging across Pluto
This high-resolution swath of Pluto sweeps over the cratered plains at the west of the New Horizons’ encounter hemisphere and across numerous prominent faults, skimming the eastern margin of the dark, forbidding region informally known as Cthulhu Regio, and finally passing over the mysterious, possibly cryovolcanic edifice Wright Mons, before reaching the terminator or day-night line. Among the many notable details shown are the overlapping and infilling relationships between units of the relatively smooth, bright volatile ices from Sputnik Planum (at the edge of the mosaic) and the dark edge or “shore” of Cthulhu. The pictures in this mosaic were taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) in “ride-along” mode with the LEISA spectrometer, which accounts for the ‘zigzag’ or step pattern. Taken shortly before New Horizons’ July 14, 2015 closest approach to Pluto, details as small as 500 meters can be seen. (NOTE: Click on the image and ZOOM IN for optimal viewing.)
Pluto’s moon Nix, half illuminated
This recently received panchromatic image of Pluto’s small satellite Nix taken by the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) aboard New Horizons is one of the best images of Pluto’s third-largest moon generated by the NASA mission. Taken on July 14, 2015 at a range of about 23,000 kilometers from Nix, the illuminated surface is about 19 kilometers by 47 kilometers. The unique perspective of this image provides new details about Nix’s geologic history and impact record.
New Horizons exploration target 2014 MU69 occults a star
On July 17, 2017 at 03:50 UTC, members of the New Horizons science team successfully observed Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69 passing in front of a background star in the constellation Sagittarius. The 24 frames in this animation were separated by 0.2 seconds apiece. In each 0.2 seconds, the shadow of 2014 MU69 passed 4 kilometers across Earth's surface. Observations like these will allow the team to constrain the size and position of the New Horizons mission's flyby target, improving the precision of their encounter planning. This animation has been processed from the originally published version to reduce noise and align the star field.
Jupiter from New Horizons
On February 28, 2007, New Horizons took this picture of Jupiter with MVIC, its color imaging instrument. Due to the nature of these observations, the Red, Blue, and NIR channels were completely saturated (they appeared bright white with no detail), but the narrow-band methane channel was well-exposed. As part of some instrument calibration work, New Horizons team member Alex Parker re-processed this archival Jupiter data using the latest approaches we developed after studying the Pluto flyby data. The new processing approach results in substantial detail enhancement.
Video
Credit: The Planetary Society
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