Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation
Instrument on the New Horizons space probe / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI), is an instrument on the New Horizons space probe to Pluto and beyond, it is designed to measure ions and electrons.[1] Specifically, it is focused on measuring ions escaping from the atmosphere of Pluto during the 2015 flyby.[2] It is one of seven major scientific instruments aboard the spacecraft.[2] The spacecraft was launched in 2006, flew by Jupiter the following year, and went onto flyby Pluto in 2015 where PEPSSI was able to record and transmit back to Earth its planned data collections.[3][4]
PEPSSI is designed to help understand the rate of atmospheric loss from the atmosphere of Pluto into space, which is thought experience comet-like atmosphere loss into outer space.[5][1] These ions blend in with the surrounding solar wind which passed by Pluto.[4] During the flyby PEPSSI sent data back to Earth every day.[6] During the journey to Pluto, PEPSSI was also used to record data about the interplanetary medium.[7] Data about Jupiter and its magnetotail was also collected by PEPSSI during its 2007 flyby of that planet.[8] Beyond Pluto and into the Kuiper belt, PEPSSI can be used to study how the solar wind interacts with interstellar wind, adding to the data pile from the Voyager's which also exited the solar system in a similar direction as the trajectory of New Horizons.[9]
One of the expectations that was not confirmed by PEPSSI was that sunlight would make a large bubble of ionized gases around Pluto from its atmosphere.[10] PEPSSI found that the rate of atmospheric loss was only 0.01 percent of what was anticipated, and the region of interaction with the solar wind was much smaller than expected.[10]