NASA's New Horizons Set To Explore More Celestial Objects Beyond Pluto

After completing a successful Pluto flyby mission in July 2015, which brought loads of useful information about the dwarf planet, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has been given the go signal to move past Pluto and observe other celestial bodies on the Kuiper Belt.

According to Houston Chronicles, New Horizons has been given a green light to make its way to an object known as 2014 MU69. This object is considered as one of the historical building blocks of the Solar System. The spacecraft is set to meet the celestial object on January 1, 2019.

"We're excited to continue onward into the dark depths of the outer solar system to a science target that wasn't even discovered when the spacecraft launched," said Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary sciences in a news release.

The New Horizons mission extension can largely take credit for a number of valuable data it has given scientists and researchers at The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  The extension is expected to last until 2021 and will do another flyby on the edge of the Solar System.

Nature World News reported that the object was discovered by the Hubble Telescope in 2014 and was chosen to be New Horizons' next destination because it was close to the spacecraft's flight path and a flyby wouldn't have required much additional fuel to visit. That's the reason why the spacecraft started to change course towards the object last fall.

The 2016 Planetary Mission Senior Review Panel report directed nine extended missions to continue operations in 2017 and 2018. NASA also announced that the Dawn spacecraft will stay at the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt called Adeona.

According to the space agency, monitoring Ceres while it gets closer to its closest approach to the sun called perihelion, has the potential to provide more significant science discoveries than a flyby of Adeona."  It was also said that before Ceres, the spacecraft had also visited another asteroid called Vesta, CBC News said.