officialunitedstates:

FACT OF THE DAY:  these images of this recently discovered planet come to us from the New Vistas space probe.  Launched in 1977, New Vistas’ goal was to exit the solar system and look for potentially livable planets in neighboring star systems.  For 35 years, New Vistas was unsuccessful; a clash with an asteroid in the Kuiper Belt sent it drastically off-course.  However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  On February 27th of this year, New Vistas came across a large planetary body, about 1.5x the size of Earth.  Scientists are optimistic that this new planet can indeed sustain life.  Two new probes have been launched and are expected to reach the newly discovered planet in 2030.