Alan Stern
Alan Stern
Sol Alan Sternis an American engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express...
belt spacecraft
The U.S. has a spacecraft on its way to Pluto, on to the Kuiper belt and on to the stars.
billion journey
In a real sense, this is not just a 4 billion-mile journey, but also a journey 4 billion years back in time.
initial led planets since states united united-states
This is in a very real sense the capstone of the initial reconnaissance of the planets that the United States has led for the world since the 1960s.
led missions nasa planets since
This is the capstone of the missions to the planets that NASA has led since the 1960s.
history initial states united
The United States is going to go down in history for the initial reconnaissance of the planets.
ancient belt conducting dig era exploring history outer peek planetary pluto solar
Exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is like conducting an archaeological dig into the history of the outer solar system, a place where we can peek into the ancient era of planetary formation.
belt bodies moon result
Our result suggests that other bodies in the Kuiper Belt may have more than one moon as well,
data great including mapping operated pocket
SWUIS operated flawlessly. We think we've got some great data in our pocket including some spectacular data on the mapping of the moon.
beyond cross entire mission solar took washington
It took us more years to get the mission beyond the Washington beltway than it will take to cross the entire Solar System.
close high inner map planets regions resolution sensitive sky sun though wide
Even though it's not as sensitive or as high resolution as the Hubble, we're able to look at the inner planets close to the sun and map wide regions of the sky very quickly.
approach spacecraft testing walk
It's really going spectacularly well. The whole approach to testing a spacecraft is to walk before you run.
thank
We thank them for being here with us.
days hill mean three
Two or three days doesn't mean a hill of beans.
four gas giants inner learned outer planets pluto rocky understand view
We've learned that the view of four inner rocky planets and four outer gas giants and one misfit Pluto is wrong. Now we understand Pluto's context.