Is a Sea Change Coming for New Horizons Heliospheric Science?
📌 概要
新视野号探测器在柯伊伯带持续产出高质量科学成果，近期从休眠中健康苏醒并回传数据。然而受经费短缺影响，其日球层物理科学数据的采集可能在年底前被切断，任务前景面临不确定性，引发科学界关注。
⚡ 关键要点
- ▸新视野号已飞掠木星、冥王星和Arrokoth，现正探索柯伊伯带外缘
- ▸探测器近期从休眠中苏醒，状态良好并持续回传科学数据
- ▸经费短缺可能导致其日球层物理科学观测在年内被迫中止
If you visit the New Horizons mission website frequently, you'll notice that the spacecraft continues to generate excellent science as it plows its way through the Kuiper Belt. It recently woke up from its latest hibernation period in good health and is transmitting data it gathered back to Earth. The spacecraft, in addition to studying the Jupiter system in 2007, the Pluto system in 2015, and the Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth in early 2019, has been doing some other fascinating solar system science since then thanks to two mission extensions in 2016 and 2023. Now, as a result of budget cuts at NASA, an important part of the NH science mission could end as early as October of this year.