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[ music, quiet talking ]

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My name is Dennis Reuter, and I'm the instrument scientist for the Ralph instrument on New Horizons.

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I don't think that Pluto cares what it's called.

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We know that we're going out and looking at a part of the solar system that's never been explored in situ before,

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in place before, and that's what's exciting about the mission.

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New Horizons is a mission to the Pluto system, and beyond,

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now that we recognize that this is all part of the Kuiper Belt,

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a undisturbed area left over from the beginning of the solar system.

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The Ralph instrument is a combined spectral imager, we look in the infrared to get spectra that tells us

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what materials are on the surface and what their temperatures are and how they're distributed,

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and it also has color imagers on it, red, blue, near-infrared and a channel for methane all in one small measurement system.

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The data will tell us a lot about what has gone on on Pluto since its formation four billion years ago.

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Pluto and the Kuiper Belt represent a new object in the solar system that has never really been explored.

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We've taken close-up images of all the planets and of many of the moons around the planets.

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The Kuiper Belt, that large area that's out there, really has never had a spacecraft visit it,

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and Pluto is the first of that and hopefully others will follow.

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[ music ]

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