PLANETARY EXPLORATION NEWSLETTER
Volume 17, Number 20 (May 8, 2023)

PEN Website: http://planetarynews.org
Editor: Mark V. Sykes
Co-Editors: Matthew R. Perry, Alex Morgan
Email: pen_editor at psi.edu
Twitter: @pen2tweets

o--------------------------SPECIAL EDITION----------------------------o

OPEN LETTER ON HELIOPHYSICS INVESTIGATIONS FROM NEW HORIZONS

We are heliophysicists on or benefiting from data from the NASA New
Horizons mission.

New Horizons has enabled uninterrupted heliophysics measurements
throughout the heliosphere for over a decade, alongside its
groundbreaking Kuiper Belt and other planetary observations. Three of
its instruments have provided unique, essentially continuous, in-situ
measurements of solar wind and interstellar pick-up ions, energetic
particles, Galactic Cosmic Rays and dust. Additionally, New Horizons'
UV spectrograph is obtaining regular, unparalleled remote measurements
of interplanetary hydrogen and all-sky mapping of the heliospheric
boundary and nearby interstellar clouds.

The conduct of the mission's heliophysics observations is both
synoptic and in no way in competition with its planetary science
observations of the Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt Objects.

In the coming years New Horizons can perform unparalleled planetary
science and important astrophysical observations from its unique,
distant position in the Kuiper Belt. And, over the next two decades
of its expected operational lifetime, it can also carry out
unprecedented, nearly-continuous heliophysics measurements during the
traversal of the outer heliosphere out into the Very Local
Interstellar Medium that Voyager could not make, offering insight
into how the entire heliosphere is upheld.

Therefore, New Horizons continues to be a powerful cross-divisional
tool that should continue to explore the heliosphere alongside its
important studies of the Kuiper Belt, and to be a pathfinder
scientifically, technically and even programmatically for future
candidate missions such as an Interstellar Probe.

Pontus C. Brandt (JHU APL, Deputy Project Scientist)
Fran Bagenal (U Col, Heliophysics Science Theme Team Lead)
Andrew Poppe (UC Berkeley, Deputy Heliophysics Science Theme Team Lead)
Ralph McNutt (JHU APL, PEPSSI Instrument Lead)
Matthew E. Hill (JHU APL, NH Co-I and PEPSSI Instrument Scientist)
Heather Elliott (SWRI, SWAP Deputy Instrument Lead)
Mihaly Horanyi (U Col, Student Dust Counter, Instrument Lead)
Zoltan Sternosky (U Col, Student Dust Counter, Instrument Lead)
Randy Gladstone (SWRI, Alice Team Member)
Tracy Becker (SWRI, Deputy Alice Instrument Lead)
Merav Opher (Boston U., Co-I and SHIELD Director)
John Richardson (MIT, SHIELD Co-I)


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